Systemic viral vector vaccination induces brain resident memory T cells to drive anti-glioblastoma immunity.

Steffke EE., Latifi L., Hana T., Hara A., Coombs M., Spurgeon J., McAuliffe J., Pereira-Almeida V., Wicki A., Abdel Malak S., Noblecourt L., Wilkinson CH., Hancock J., Panetti S., Kim H., Anderson B., Makranz C., Briceno N., Zhang M., Zhang W., Davis D., Song H., Bryan M., Okada H., Gilbert M., Leung CSK., Van den Eynde BJ., Terabe M.

Glioblastoma is a lethal brain tumor that is unresponsive to current cancer immunotherapeutic approaches, including immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). This suggests that initial priming of T cells, rather than their expansion and licensing as effectors, is a restricting feature in this tumor setting. To overcome the limited initiation of CD8 + T cell responses, we employed a strong heterologous prime-boost vaccination with the simian adenovirus ChAdOx1 and poxvirus modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA). Vaccination conferred therapeutic efficacy against orthotopic, immune checkpoint-blockade (ICB)-refractory SB28 murine glioblastoma. Vaccination was effective against both the murine tumor antigen, P1A, and a newly identified glioblastoma-associated antigen, Gpr149. Additional treatment with ICB provided no additional benefit. Systemic ChAdOx1/MVA vaccination induced robust infiltration of antigen-specific T cells in tumor-challenged brains, the majority of which exhibited a CD103 + CD69 + CD8 + tissue-resident memory (TRM)-like phenotype. These cells were polyfunctional, durable in brains with sustained tumor control, and mediated tissue-specific immunological memory. Moreover, intracranial adoptive transfer of glioblastoma-derived antigen-specific TRM-like cells was sufficient to protect naïve recipients from subsequent orthotopic tumor challenge. Together, these findings establish that viral vector vaccination can generate tumor-specific TRM-like cells that mediate effective anti-glioblastoma immunity, providing a rationale for clinical evaluation of ChAdOx1/MVA-based strategies in glioblastoma.

DOI

10.64898/2026.06.18.733241

Type

Journal article

Publication Date

2026-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

Permalink More information Close