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Systemic HER3 ligand-mimicking nanobioparticles enter the brain and reduce intracranial tumour growth

Crossing the blood–brain barrier (BBB) and reaching intracranial tumours is a clinical challenge for current targeted interventions including antibody-based therapies, contributing to poor patient outcomes. Increased cell surface density of human epidermal growth factor receptor 3 (HER3) is associated with a growing number of metastatic tumour types and is observed on tumour cells that acquire resistance to a growing number of clinical targeted therapies. Here we describe the evaluation of HER3-homing nanobiological particles (nanobioparticles (NBPs)) on such tumours in preclinical models and our discovery that systemic NBPs could be found in the brain even in the absence of such tumours. Our subsequent studies described here show that HER3 is prominently associated with both mouse and human brain endothelium and with extravasation of systemic NBPs in mice and in human-derived BBB chips in contrast to non-targeted agents. In mice, systemically delivered NBPs carrying tumoricidal agents reduced the growth of intracranial triple-negative breast cancer cells, which also express HER3, with improved therapeutic profile compared to current therapies and compared to agents using traditional BBB transport routes. As HER3 associates with a growing number of metastatic tumours, the NBPs described here may offer targeted efficacy especially when such tumours localize to the brain.

A detoxified TLR4 agonist inhibits tumour growth and lung metastasis of osteosarcoma by promoting CD8+ cytotoxic lymphocyte infiltration

Osteosarcoma is the most common malignant bone tumour with limited treatment options and poor outcomes in advanced metastatic cases. Current immunotherapies show limited efficacy, highlighting the need for novel therapeutic approaches. Systemic immune activation by Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) immunostimulants has shown great promise; however, current TLR4 agonists’ toxicity hinders this systemic approach in patients with osteosarcoma.

Identifying perturbations that boost T-cell infiltration into tumours via counterfactual learning of their spatial proteomic profiles

Cancer progression can be slowed down or halted via the activation of either endogenous or engineered T cells and their infiltration of the tumour microenvironment. Here we describe a deep-learning model that uses large-scale spatial proteomic profiles of tumours to generate minimal tumour perturbations that boost T-cell infiltration. The model integrates a counterfactual optimization strategy for the generation of the perturbations with the prediction of T-cell infiltration as a self-supervised machine learning problem. We applied the model to 368 samples of metastatic melanoma and colorectal cancer assayed using 40-plex imaging mass cytometry, and discovered cohort-dependent combinatorial perturbations (CXCL9, CXCL10, CCL22 and CCL18 for melanoma, and CXCR4, PD-1, PD-L1 and CYR61 for colorectal cancer) that support T-cell infiltration across patient cohorts, as confirmed via in vitro experiments. Leveraging counterfactual-based predictions of spatial omics data may aid the design of cancer therapeutics.

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