Prodrug Glutamine Antagonist Slows Tumor Growth, A Potential Breakthrough For Cancer
Source: Thailand Medical News Nov 09, 2019 5 years, 5 days, 5 hours, 5 minutes ago
Researchers from Johns Hopkins have developed a compound that blocks
glutamine metabolism and can slow
tumor growth, alter the
tumor microenvironment and promote the production of durable and highly active
anti-tumor T cells. The drug, a "prodrug" version of the
glutamine antagonist DON, was designed so that the active form of the drug is functional within the tumor. In theory, this compound could be used across a wide spectrum of
cancer types, says Dr Jonathan Powell, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the Bloomberg-Kimmel Institute for
Cancer Immunotherapy at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, due to the critical role of
glutamine in promoting the metabolism necessary for prodigious
tumor growth.
The development and study of this prodrug reveals surprising differences in the metabolic pathways fueling
cancer cells and effector T cells, pathways that were thought previously to be very similar. These differences could be exploited as a "metabolic checkpoint" in treating
cancer.
Dr Jonathan Powell told
Thailand Medical News via phone interview, "By targeting
glutamine metabolism, we were not only able to inhibit
tumor growth and change the tumor microenvironment, but also alter the T cells in a way that we markedly enhanced
immunotherapy for
cancer. Although
glutamine metabolism is a component of all cells of the body, the DON prodrug selectively targeted tumor cells because they are the "hungriest" for
glutamine. What's emerging in metabolic therapy and to me this is why it's incredibly exciting is that a treatment like ours becomes selective because it preferentially affects the cells that have the greatest demand."
Dr Powell and colleagues tested the DON prodrug, dubbed JHU083, in mice models of colon cancer,
lymphoma and
melanoma.
He further commented,"In the beginning, our thought was that if we could target tumor metabolism, we could achieve two goals: slow tumor growth and alter the
tumor microenvironment.The
tumor microenvironment ie the cells, blood vessels and nutrients in the vicinity of
tumors, is very hostile to the immune response because it is usually acidic, hypoxic and nutrient-depleted. This immune shield that the
tumor creates around itself is in a sense a direct result of
tumor metabolism."
In animal models like mice, treatment with JHU083 led to a significant decrease in tumor growth and improved survival in many different
cancer models, by derailing
tumor cell metabolism and its effects on the
tumor microenvironment, the research team found. In a number of the mice, treatment with JH
U083 alone led to durable cures. These cures were facilitated because the metabolic therapy unleashed the natural anti-tumor immune response. When the researchers reinjected these
cancer-free mice with new
tumors, they found that almost all the mice rejected the new
tumor, suggesting that the JHU083 treatment had produced a powerful immune memory to recognize and attack the new
cancer.
The research team also treated the mice with JHU083 and an anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor, a type of
immunotherapy drug that removes restraints
cancer cells place on immune cells.
Dr Jonathan Powell added, "Initially, we thought we would need to use the two therapies sequentially in order to avoid any potential impact of the metabolic therapy on the
immunotherapy. Remarkably, however, it turned out that the combined treatment worked best when we gave them simultaneously. Concurrent treatment with the drugs produced improved anti-
tumor effects compared with anti-PD-1 therapy alone. We found that JHU083 was having a very positive, very direct effect on the immune cells, and we had to investigate why."
After studying, analyzing and comparing gene expression in the treated
tumor cells and a type of immune cell called effector T cells, Powell and colleagues noted differences in gene expression related to metabolism, which allowed them to guess at how the T cell was fueling itself compared with the
tumor.
The team found some similarities, but fundamentally the metabolic programming of tumor cells and the effector T immune cells was quite different, and it is those differences the researchers exploited by giving the
glutamine-blocking drug.
These key differences allowed the effector T cells to respond to the
glutamine blockage by producing long-lasting, highly effective
tumor-infiltrating T cells that seemed to be invigorated rather than exhausted in the tumor microenvironment. By blocking
glutamine metabolism, we were making these cells more persistent, more like an immune memory cell.
The research team also demonstrated that treating the
tumors with JHU083 enhanced the efficacy of adoptive cellular therapy, a type of
immunotherapy in which immune T cells are collected and grown in large numbers in the laboratory before being given to patients to boost the immune response against
cancer. These findings suggest that this new approach may also be used to enhance a promising type of adoptive cell therapy called CAR-T. In future studies, Powell and colleagues want to examine how JHU083 combines with different types of
immunotherapy to explore whether certain tumors can overcome the metabolic trap laid by JHU083.
Dr Jonathan Powell added, “Potentially,
tumors that develop metabolic pathways to avoid the impacts of JHU083 could find themselves in a ‘blind alley’. By adding an additional metabolic antagonist, you could potentially get rid of the resistant
tumors as well."
The team is planning to initiate clinical trials in early 2020 and also a major international cohort study in later part of 2020.
Reference: Robert D. Leone et al, Glutamine blockade induces divergent metabolic programs to overcome tumor immune evasion, Science (2019). DOI: 10.1126/science.aav2588
