Abstract 1604: NKTR-214 synergizes with radiotherapy to drive tumor regression
Authors: Mcnamara Michael J. , Kasiewicz Melissa , Hilgart-Martiszus Ian , Hoch Ute , Charych Deborah H. , Redmond William L. 
Published: July 2017

The purpose of this study was to investigate therapeutic and mechanistic synergies between single-dose radiotherapy and systemic administration of NKTR-214. NKTR-214 is a CD122-biased cytokine agonist conjugated with multiple releasable chains of polyethylene glycol. NKTR-214 is designed to provide sustained signaling through the heterodimeric IL-2 receptor pathway (IL-2Rβγ) to preferentially activate and expand effector CD8+ T and NK cells over Regulatory CD4 T cells. Preclinical models demonstrated NKTR-214 preferentially expands effector CD8+ T cells and NK cells within the tumor resulting in marked tumor growth suppression as a single-agent and in combination with checkpoint inhibitors. A phase I/II trial is in progress to evaluate NKTR-214 safety and efficacy in an outpatient setting. Radiation therapy can induce antigen-release and epitope spreading, while NKTR-214 can active and expand antigen-specific effector populations. We hypothesized that the combination of systemic NKTR-214 and local radiotherapy would generate better therapeutic responses than either treatment alone. In this study, we evaluated the combination of systemic NKTR-214 treatment with single fraction high-dose radiotherapy (20 Gy) in multiple murine models. We used flow cytometry, multi-spectral histology, and whole tumor mRNA profiling to investigate local, systemic and potential abscopal immune responses. We used Nur77-GFP reporter mice to enable detection of T cell receptor ligation in vivo and to evaluate the effects of NKTR-214+RT on tumor-reactive T cells. The results from these studies indicate that the combination of NKTR-214 and radiotherapy is synergistic, providing significantly better anti-tumor responses than either monotherapy. Consistent with previous observations, NKTR-214 alone induces expression of a wide range of activation markers expressed by CD4 and CD8 T cells as well as NK cells in the blood, lymph nodes and tumor. The combination of radiotherapy and NKTR-214 was found to have several unique effects including a significant increase (&gt;75%) in the absolute numbers of lymphocytes in the peripheral blood, increased expression of activation markers (CD25, PD-1) by CD8 T cells in the blood and tumor, and increased density of tumor-infiltrating NK cells. Evaluation of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in Nur77-GFP reporter mice revealed that the combination of NKTR-214+RT resulted in a higher frequency of recently activated (Nur77-GFP+) CD8 T cells in treated (irradiated) and abscopal (non-irradiated) tumors. Whole tumor mRNA profiling and multi-spectral histology of these tumors is being assessed to identify key differences in the tumor-microenvironment that may help to define the underlying mechanism of action. Taken together, these data provide evidence of synergy between localized radiotherapy and systemic NKTR-214 treatment via an expansion of activated, tumor-specific CD8 T cells.

Citation Format: Michael J. Mcnamara, Melissa Kasiewicz, Ian Hilgart-Martiszus, Ute Hoch, Deborah H. Charych, William L. Redmond. NKTR-214 synergizes with radiotherapy to drive tumor regression [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1604. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-1604