Immunotherapy Flashcards
What kinds of immunotherapy is there?
Vaccines
Immune modulatory drugs
Biologicals
Cell therapies
What is immunotherapy?
A form of cancer treatment that harnesses the body’s immune system to recognize, target, and eliminate cancer cells.
What diseases respond to Immunotherapy?
Cancer
Autoimmune Diseases
Transplantation
Infectious Diseases
What kinds of immunotherapies stimulate immune responses?
Adjuvants and antigens
Vaccines
Immune checkpoint blockade
Transfer of tumour specific T cells
What kinds of immunotherapies suppress immune responses?
Monoclonal antibodies
Immunomodulators
Regulatory T cells
What are prophylactic vaccines?
Used to stimulate protective immune memory in healthy individuals
What are therapeutic vaccines?
Designed to stimulate immunity in patients who already have chronic infections or cancer.
What are tolerogenic vaccines?
Induce immune tolerance instead of activation.
They suppress immune responses to treat autoimmune diseases.
They contain antigens and immunomodulatory agents to promote immune tolerance.
How do mRNA vaccines work?
The vaccine contains mRNA encoding a specific antigen from the pathogen.
The mRNA is encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles and injected into the body.
Cells in the body, particularly antigen-presenting cells , take up the mRNA.
The mRNA is translated by the host cell’s machinery, leading to expression of the antigen within the cell.
The antigen is presented on the surface of the host cell, activating the immune system.
The immune system recognizes the antigen as foreign and mounts an immune response, including the production of antibodies and activation of T cells.
What are Designed T cell vaccine?
Personalized cancer vaccines or neoantigen vaccines
Designed to harness the body’s immune system to target and eliminate cancer cells.
What are immune modulatory drugs?
Small molecules that target signalling pathways, enzymes, cellular recognition, etc. to stimulate or suppress immunity
When are immune modulatory drugs stimulants used?
Used to treat hypo-immune syndromes (adjuvants)
What kinds of immune modulatory drugs are stimulants?
PRR activators
Cytokines
Chemokines
IDO inhibitors
When are immune suppressant modulatory drugs used?
Used to treat hyper-immune syndromes
What kinds of immune modulatory drugs are suppressants?
Steroid hormones
Interferon 1 (IFNb)
JAK inhibitors
What are monoclonal antibodies produced by?
B cell hybridomas
B cells fused with myeloma cells
When are cytolytic monoclonal antibodies used?
Used to eliminated cancerous cells
When are blocking monoclonal antibodies?
Used to inhibit cell interactions and cell signalling
What kinds of soluble fusion proteins exist?
CTLA4 blockade
Cytokine blockade
What is the CTLA4 blockade?
Inhibits T cell responses by blocking B7/CD28 interactions between Antigen Presenting Cells
What is the cytokine blockade?
Inhibit cytokine signalling to suppress autoimmune pathologies
How to target monoclonal antibodies to tumour cells?
Identify antigens
Characterise antigen
Select epitopes for antigen binding
Engineer monoclonal antibodies for specificity and efficiency
Validate in preclinical models.
How are antibodies used for cancer therapy by blocking signalling pathways?
Signal Transduction Inhibition
Downregulation of Growth Signals
Induction Apoptosis
Angiogenesis inhibition
Immune modulation
How do antibodies downregulate the growth signals in cancer cells?
By blocking key receptors, such as receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), and preventing the activation of downstream signalling molecules.
How do antibodies inhibit angiogenesis in cancer cells?
Antibodies targeting angiogenic factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or its receptors (VEGFRs), can disrupt tumour angiogenesis, leading to reduced blood supply to the tumour and inhibition of tumour growth.
What kinds of immune checkpoints are blocked by CTLA4?
T cell suppression by binding to CTLA4
What kinds of immune checkpoints are blocked by PD1/L?
T cell suppression by
binding to PD-1 or PD-1 ligands
What are T cell therapies?
Generate autologous tumour-specific T cell.
When are Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs) used?
used to engineer T cells to recognize tumour cells specifically and kill them.
When are Regulatory T cell (Treg) therapies used?
Potential use to treat patients with hyper-immunity.
Give 2 examples of T cell therapies?
Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs)
Regulatory T cell (Treg) therapies
2 examples of dendritic cell (CD) therapies.
Provenge
Regulatory DC therapies
What is provenge?
To treat prostate cancer. Patient blood cells are used to generate mature DCs (APCs) that present prostate antigen (PAP) to T cells.
Mature DCs are infused back into patients as a tumour-specific vaccine
What are regulatory DC therapies?
Potential use to treat arthritis patients (in clinical trials).
DCs are prepared from blood cells to select DCs with immune regulatory functions.
Regulatory DCs are then infused into arthritic joints.
