Abstract 577: Antagonism of the co-inhibitory receptor BTLA enhances efficacy of anti-PD-1 treatment in murine syngeneic tumor models
Authors: Nathan R. Miselis, Douglas Linn, Clifford Restaino, Toya Baral, Jane Xia, Roanna Ueda, Anandi Sawant, Jeanne Baker, Gopalan Raghunathan, Xinzhong Wang1, Edward Bowman, Selvakumar Sukumar
Journal: Cancer Research (2017)

Abstract Anti-PD1 therapies show a remarkable improvement in response over many standard of care regimens, but there is a significant need to further increase patient responses. Recent clinical studies show improved response rate when combining anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA4 therapies. This provides “proof of concept” that the combination of two immunotherapies can enhance efficacy. The goal of our work was to evaluate the anti-tumor efficacy of B and T lymphocyte attenuator (BTLA) antagonism with anti-PD1 therapy in preclinical mouse tumor models. BTLA is an inhibitory co-receptor that modulates T cell function and is a marker of “exhausted” T cells. The inhibitory signal mediated by BTLA is initiated following engagement with herpesvirus entry mediator (HVEM), a ubiquitous receptor that is highly expressed on malignant cells. One of the challenges to evaluating BTLA in mouse models is the presence of strain-specific allelic polymorphisms. These sequence differences occur adjacent to the HVEM binding sites and can interfere with the ability of certain antibodies to recognize BTLA in different strains of mice or block the HVEM-BTLA signaling. C57BL/6-specific and strain agnostic BTLA binding antibodies are commercially available, but none antagonize HVEM signaling through BTLA in BALB/c mice. To more comprehensively evaluate the anti-BTLA/anti-PD1 combination regimen we generated a first-in-class BALB/c strain polymorphism specific BTLA antagonist monoclonal antibody (40E4) and identified clone PJ196 as a C57BL/6 strain polymorphism specific antagonist. We show that 40E4 and PJ196 not only block BTLA:HVEM interaction as measured by cell ELISA, but also reverse HVEM-mediated suppression in primary T cells from the appropriate mouse strain. An effector function reduced mouse IgG1 (D265A) chimeric form of 40E4 was generated for in vivo use. In combination with anti-PD1 (mDX400), 40E4 mIgG1 (D265A) shows improved tumor growth inhibition (TGI) over mDX400 alone in preclinical subcutaneous mouse models of breast cancer (EMT6) and colon cancer (CT26). To show that anti-BTLA enhancement of the anti-tumor response to mDX400 is not unique to BALB/c mice, we tested the combination of a C57BL/6 BTLA strain-polymorphism specific monoclonal antibody (PJ196) with mDX400. Using the subcutaneous MB49 model of bladder cancer, we show that treatment with PJ196 and mDX400 significantly improved TGI over mDX400 alone. This is the first report evaluating a BTLA antagonist monoclonal antibody in preclinical mouse tumor models and the first report to show BTLA antagonism enhances the effect of anti-PD1 therapy. Citation Format: Nathan R. Miselis, Douglas Linn, Clifford Restaino, Toya Baral, Jane Xia, Roanna Ueda, Anandi Sawant, Jeanne Baker, Gopalan Raghunathan, Xinzhong Wang1, Edward Bowman, Selvakumar Sukumar. Antagonism of the co-inhibitory receptor BTLA enhances efficacy of anti-PD-1 treatment in murine syngeneic tumor models [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 577. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-577