Abstract 2478: Inhibition of CD39 by AB598 increases extracellular ATP resulting in activation of myeloid cells and T cells to enhance anti-tumor immunity
Authors: Jin Ke , Clor Julie , Parashar Kaustubh , Fuchs Rebecca , Stetson LC , Cho Sean , Walters Matthew J. , Fernandez-Salas Ester , Bowman Christine E. 
Published: March 2024

Extracellular ATP (eATP) is a potent immunostimulatory signal in the tumor microenvironment (TME), but it is rapidly degraded into AMP and immunosuppressive adenosine. Therefore, ATP metabolism is an attractive anti-tumor target. Several enzymes are involved in the immunosuppressive process used by the TME to convert ATP to AMP and adenosine. Among them, CD39 (gene: ENTPD1), an extracellular ATPase, is a promising target. Analyzing mRNA expression from the TCGA, we show that CD39 is consistently expressed at high levels in comparison to the other extracellular ATP-converting enzymes, ENPP1 and TNAP. We further demonstrate that CD39 has greater enzymatic activity at the slightly acidic physiological pH (pH = 6.8) of the TME than either ENPP1 or TNAP. Flow cytometry profiling of dissociated primary human gastric tumors showed that CD39 was highly expressed on both myeloid and lymphoid cells, including several populations of T cells present in the tumors. This is distinct from findings in healthy primary human PBMCs that show high expression of CD39 on myeloid subsets and relatively few subsets of T cells with high CD39 expression. AB598 is a novel, humanized, Fc-silent anti-CD39 therapeutic antibody that potently binds to CD39 and inhibits its enzymatic activity with sub-nanomolar potency. Treatment of dissociated primary human gastric tumor cells with AB598 resulted in a decrease in the rate of ATP degradation, indicating both the effectiveness of AB598 and the relevance of CD39 as a main contributor to the ATPase activity of the TME. Although eATP is low in healthy tissues, high levels of ATP can be released when cancer cells are treated with immunogenic cell death (ICD)-inducing agents, increasing the eATP in the TME, providing a rationale for the combination of ICD-inducing chemotherapy and AB598. Thus, cancer cells were co-cultured with monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) and treated with chemotherapy and AB598 to preserve the eATP released by dying cancer cells. The increased expression of CD83 and CD86 on moDCs demonstrated that the combination treatment enhanced the maturation of moDCs, compared to single or no treatment. To further elucidate the anti-tumor effects of the combination treatment, autogenous T cells were introduced into this system. AB598 significantly enhanced T cell activation in the presence of chemotherapy. These data demonstrate that using AB598 results in elevated eATP, which boosts immune cell activation to promote anti-tumor immunity.

Citation Format: Ke Jin, Julie Clor, Kaustubh Parashar, Rebecca Fuchs, LC Stetson, Sean Cho, Matthew J. Walters, Ester Fernandez-Salas, Christine E. Bowman. Inhibition of CD39 by AB598 increases extracellular ATP resulting in activation of myeloid cells and T cells to enhance anti-tumor immunity [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 2478.