{"doi":"10.1126/scitranslmed.abd8636","title":"Epitope spreading toward wild-type melanocyte-lineage antigens rescues suboptimal immune checkpoint blockade responses","abstract":"T cell populations specific for melanocyte antigens was observed only in patients who responded to anti-PD-1 therapy, suggesting that ICI can promote breakdown of tolerance toward tumor-lineage self-antigens. In a mouse model of poorly immunogenic melanomas, spreading of epitope recognition toward wild-type melanocyte antigens was associated with markedly improved anti-PD-1 efficacy in two independent approaches: introduction of neoantigens by ultraviolet (UV) B radiation mutagenesis or the therapeutic combination of ablative fractional photothermolysis plus imiquimod. Complete responses against UV mutation-bearing tumors after anti-PD-1 resulted in protection from subsequent engraftment of melanomas lacking any shared neoantigens, as well as pancreatic adenocarcinomas forcibly overexpressing melanocyte-lineage antigens. Our data demonstrate that somatic mutations are sufficient to provoke strong antitumor responses after checkpoint blockade, but long-term responses are not restricted to these putative neoantigens. Epitope spreading toward T cell recognition of wild-type tumor-lineage self-antigens represents a common pathway for successful response to ICI, which can be evoked in neoantigen-deficient tumors by combination therapy with ablative fractional photothermolysis and imiquimod.","journal":"Science Translational Medicine","year":2021,"id":150073,"datarank":0.6907755278982138,"base_score":4.605170185988092,"endowment":4.605170185988092,"self_citation_contribution":0.6907755278982138,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.6907755278982138,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":99,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9479,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":639435,"name":"Masayoshi Kawakubo","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":108664,"name":"Vikram R. 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