The establishment of peptide vaccine as a consolidation therapy for childhood cancer.

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26670508
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Pediatrics
• Research Institution: Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Hosoi Hajime 京都府立医科大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (20238744)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 小児がん / 免疫療法 / 横紋筋肉腫 / 免疫チェックポイント / PD-L1 / PD-1 / 融合遺伝子

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Novel therapeutic strategy is required to cure patients with PAX3-FOXO1 positive metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS). Programmed cell death 1 ligand 1 (PD-L1) plays a major role in suppressing the immune system. Here, we examined the relationship between PAX3-FOXO1 fusion gene and PD-L1 expression to explore the possibility of using anti-PD-1 antibody as treatment for metastatic RMS.
Four PAX3-FOXO1-positive RMS cell lines (RM2, Rh4, Rh30, Rh41) were used. The PD-L1 expression was determined by real-time qPCR and flow cytometry. The PD-L1 expressions of the Rh30 and the RM2 cell line were high among the four cell lines. PAX3-FOXO1 knockdown resulted in decrease in cell-surface expression of PD-L1 in Rh30 and RM2 cells.
Our results show that PAX3-FOXO1 plays a role in PD-L1 mediated immune escape. Anti-PD-1 antibody can be a novel therapeutic strategy against PAX3-FOXO1-positive RMS.

Free Research Field

小児腫瘍学