Neither combination of vaccine with CPM or with CT-011 show a significant decrease in splenic Treg-cell levels on day 21 after tumor implantation (Fig. 3D), indicating that CT-011 and CPM exhibit synergistic effect in decreasing the level of Treg cells. Importantly, no significant changes in total number of CD4+ T cells were observed in treated animals compared to controls (data not shown). To further dissect the mechanism of this synergy, in a separate experiment we investigated the dynamics of
splenic Treg-cell level changes over time, after treatment with CPM, CT-011 or CPM/CT-011. It was previously reported that Treg cells nadir 4 days after CPM treatment to almost half of the level seen in untreated mice, and that they recover by day 10 to pretreatment find more level 27. Similarly, we found that after treatment with CPM alone in tumor-bearing mice, the level of Treg cells is significantly decreased at day +4 after ABT-263 solubility dmso CPM treatment (days 11 and 14 after tumor implantation), and return to normal levels on day +11 of CPM (day
18 after tumor implantation) (Fig. 3E). Interestingly, we found that CT-011 alone does not affect the levels of Treg cells in spleens. However, when CT-011 is given in combination with CPM it leads to a prolonged sustainable effect on Treg-cell inhibition, with a synergistic effect at all time points analyzed up to day +19 of CPM treatment (day 26 after tumor implantation, Fig. 3E). Since non-treated mice did not survive longer than 26 days after tumor implantation, it was impossible to compare splenic Treg-cell levels at later time points. Thus, in these experiments
we showed that anti-PD-1 antibody given with low-dose CPM maintains decreased levels of Treg cells in spleens of tumor-bearing mice. After we showed that the combination of CT-011 and CPM with vaccine induces potent anti-tumor responses, we sought to dissect Phloretin the effects of this therapy on the T-cell repertoire within the tumor. Mice were treated with CPM 7 days after tumors were implanted and with HPV16 E7 peptide vaccine and CT-011 on days 8 and 15, with appropriate controls. Mice were sacrificed on day 21 and tumor infiltration of CD8+, CD4+Foxp3− and CD4+Foxp3+ Treg cells was analyzed in tumor homogenates by flow cytometry. As expected, groups that received the E7 peptide vaccine showed a significant increase in tumor-infiltrated CD8+ T cells (p<0.001) compared with control groups, and CD8+ T-cell levels were comparable whether the vaccine was given alone or in combination with CT-011 or CPM. The group of mice that received the combination of anti-PD-1 antibody and CPM with E7 vaccine showed the highest significant increase in the number of tumor-infiltrated CD8+ T cells (compared to vaccine alone (p<0.001), vaccine/CPM (p<0.001) or vaccine/CT-011 (p<0.05) groups) (Fig. 4A).