Dual A2A/ A2B adenosine receptor antagonist M1069 counteracts immuno-suppressive mechanisms of adenosine and reduces tumor growth in vivo.

While A2A adenosine receptor (AR) was considered as a major contributor to adenosine-mediated immunosuppression, A2B, having the lowest affinity to adenosine, has also emerged as a potential contributor to tumor promotion. Therefore, in adenosine-rich tumor microenvironment (TME), where A2B could be complementary and/or compensatory to A2A, simultaneous targeting of A2A and A2B ARs can provide higher potential for cancer immunotherapy. We developed M1069 - a highly selective dual antagonist of the A2A and A2B AR. In assays with primary human and murine immune cells, M1069 rescued IL 2 production from T cells (A2A dependent) and inhibited VEGF production by myeloid cells (A2B dependent) in adenosine-high settings. M1069 also demonstrated superior suppression of secretion of pro tumorigenic cytokines CXCL1, CXCL5, and rescue of IL 12 secretion from adenosine differentiated dendritic cells compared to an A2A selective antagonist (A2Ai). In a one-way mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) assay, adenosine differentiated human and murine dendritic cells treated with M1069 demonstrated superior T cell stimulatory activity compared to dendritic cells differentiated in presence of A2Ai. In vivo, M1069 decreased tumor growth as a monotherapy and enhanced anti-tumor activity of bintrafusp alfa (BA) or cisplatin in syngeneic adenosinehi/CD73hi 4T1 breast tumor model, but not in the CD73 knockout (KO) 4T1 tumor model or in adenosinelow/CD73low MC38 murine colon carcinoma model. In summary, our dual A2A/A2B AR antagonist M1069 may counteract immune-suppressive mechanisms of high concentrations of adenosine in vitro and in vivo and enhance the anti-tumor activity of other agents, including BA and cisplatin.

Survival of Naïve T Cells Requires the Expression of Let-7 miRNAs.

Maintaining the diversity and constant numbers of naïve T cells throughout the organism's lifetime is necessary for efficient immune responses. Naïve T cell homeostasis, which consists of prolonged survival, occasional proliferation and enforcement of quiescence, is tightly regulated by multiple signaling pathways which are in turn controlled by various transcription factors. However, full understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the maintenance of the peripheral T cell pool has not been achieved. In the present study, we demonstrate that T cell-specific deficiency in let-7 miRNAs results in peripheral T cell lymphopenia resembling that of Dicer1 knockout mice. Deletion of let-7 leads to profound T cell apoptosis while overexpression prevents it. We further show that in the absence of let-7, T cells cannot sustain optimal levels of the pro-survival factor Bcl2 in spite of the intact IL-7 signaling, and re-expression of Bcl2 in let-7 deficient T cells completely rescues the survival defect. Thus, we have uncovered a novel let-7-dependent mechanism of post-transcriptional regulation of naïve T cell survival in vivo.