Combined chemotherapy and allogeneic human Vγ9Vδ2 T lymphocyte-immunotherapies efficiently control the development of human epithelial ovarian cancer cells in vivo

Abstract

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) represents 5% of human gynecologic cancers in the world, is heterogeneous and highly invasive with a dismal prognosis (5 year-survival rate <35%). Diagnosis of EOC is frequently made at advanced stages and, despite aggressive treatments combining surgery and chemotherapy, fatal relapse rapidly occurs and is accompanied by a peritoneal carcinosis. In this context, novel therapeutical advances are urgently required. Adoptive transfer(s) of immune effector cells, including allogeneic human Vγ9Vδ2 T lymphocytes, represent attractive targets for efficiently and safely tracking tissue-invading tumor cells and controlling tumor dissemination in the organism. Our study describes the establishment of robust and physiological orthotopic model of human EOC in mouse, that includes surgical resection (ovariectomy) and chemotherapy, which are ineluctably accompanied by a fatal peritoneal carcinosis recurrence. Through a complementary set of in vitro and in vivo experiments, we provide here a preclinical proof of interest of the antitumor efficiency of adoptive transfers of allogeneic human Vγ9Vδ2 T lymphocytes against EOC, in association with surgical debulking and standard chemotherapies (i.e., taxanes and platinum salts). Moreover, our results indicate that chemo- and immunotherapies can be combined to improve the antitumor efficiency of immunotherapeutic lines. Altogether, these results further pave the way for next-generation antitumor immunotherapies, based on local administrations of human allogeneic human Vγ9Vδ2 T lymphocytes, in association with standard treatments.