Abstract 7044: Transcriptome and TCR repertoire in human telomerase reverse transcriptase peptide vaccine treated metastatic prostate cancer patients

Abstract

Abstract Human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) vaccine has found to be effective for most of the participated de novo metastatic prostate cancer patients in clinical studies. Nevertheless, the molecular mechanisms behind the immune response induced by the hTERT vaccine are not fully elucidated. Among the cohort of 21 patients treated with androgen deprivation therapy, radiotherapy and hTERT vaccine, we used RNA-sequencing and TCR-sequencing (20 and 14 pre-treatment and 20 and 21 post-treatment samples, respectively) to inspect the changes in transcriptome and TCR-repertoire after the hTERT vaccine treatment and differences between patients that had early response and patients that had late or no response. We found multiple hallmarks being shifted after the treatment and being different between early and late responders. Also, a change in activity of multiple gene set signatures was detected after the treatment and activity of part of the gene set signatures predicted survival. Deconvolution of cell type composition from RNA-sequencing data revealed changes in immune cell abundances after the treatment. TCR-sequencing revealed changes in composition and diversity of TCR repertoires after the treatment and these differed between early and late responders. The results of this study will help to predict patients’ responses to the cancer vaccine and to further understand the mechanisms behind successful cancer vaccines. Citation Format: Reetta Nätkin, Julia Elisabeth Simensen, Nikolai Engedal, Espen Basmo Ellingsen, Marita Westhrin, Ingunn Westgaard, Eivind Hovig, Wolfgang Lilleby, Matti Nykter, Alfonso Urbanucci. Transcriptome and TCR repertoire in human telomerase reverse transcriptase peptide vaccine treated metastatic prostate cancer patients [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 7044.