Leveraging a powerful allogeneic dendritic cell line towards neoantigen-based cancer vaccines.

In recent years, immunotherapy has finally found its place in the anti-cancer therapeutic arsenal, even becoming standard of care as first line treatment for metastatic forms. The clinical benefit provided by checkpoint blockers such as anti-PD-1/PD-L1 in many cancers revolutionized the field. However, too many patients remain refractory to these treatments due to weak baseline anti-cancer immunity.

PD-1/PD-L1 Checkpoint Inhibitors Are Active in the Chicken Embryo Model and Show Antitumor Efficacy .

(1) Purpose: To assess the use of the chicken embryo () model as an alternative model for immuno-oncology (IO) drug development, focusing on programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) immune checkpoint inhibitors. (2) Methods: First, the presence of immune cells in the model was detected through the immunophenotyping of chicken peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) based on fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis and the immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. Second, the cross-reactivity between one anti-human PD-1 Ab, pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA), and chicken PD-1 was verified through the labelling of chicken splenocytes with pembrolizumab by FACS analysis.