According to pre-clinical results, breast cancer researchers from New Zealand have discovered a unique vaccine design that may slow tumour growth and inhibit metastasis.
The research, published July 5th in Clinical & Translational Immunology, shows promise for the development of an effective therapeutic vaccine against high-risk breast cancer, that could target specific breast cancer antigens to kill affected cells, not only in the main tumour area but throughout the body.
The vaccine design was shown to delay tumour growth and prevent breast cancer metastasis in preclinical models of both HER2-positive breast cancer and triple negative breast cancer.
Lead author, Malaghan Institute Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Olivia Burn, said their research indicated that the unique glycolipid-vaccine platform could be used to generate strong immune responses against clinically relevant breast cancer markers.
“Future steps could include progressing this vaccine design, possibly using RNA technology, where the whole protein for HER2 and NY-ESO-1 could be used as a vaccine target, which would provide greater population coverage,” Dr Burn said.
“RNA technology could also make it easier to investigate other relevant breast cancer markers and help us assess if metastasis to other organs, such as the liver, can be prevented.”
Researchers from the Malaghan Institute, in collaboration with the Ferrier Research Institute, had been working on developing stimulatory molecules that act as ‘vaccine adjuvants’, helping to boost the immune system’s natural response to breast cancer antigens.
“We’re particularly interested in triple negative breast cancer because it can present as a more aggressive kind of breast cancer and currently has very limited treatment options,” Dr Burn said.
“First-we combined segments of the HER2 protein with our immuno-stimulatory compound – a glycolipid which activates a particular immune cell population – to enhance the immune response against HER2, [and] a single dose of this treatment delayed tumour growth and prevented its growth in the lung.
“Then, in a model of triple-negative breast cancer we used a different vaccine that targeted parts of the protein NY-ESO-1, which is often overexpressed in these cancers, particularly when it has spread to other organs and found similarly encouraging anti-tumour results.”
According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation around 1 in 7 Australian women are affected by breast cancer in their lifetime, and while the survival rate is high thanks to early detection measures, more than 3,100 Australians died in 2021, with an estimated 20,000 new cases diagnosed that year.
“While breast cancer is very treatable, the principal cause of breast cancer mortality is not the initial tumour itself, but its spread to other parts of the body – preventing this spread, or metastasis, is key to reducing the number of people who die from this disease,” Dr Burn explained.
“Metastatic cancers typically originate from a single source, with the resulting tumours often being copies of the ‘parent’ tumour and displaying the same physical markers on their surface, [and] because of this similarity, there is good potential for developing a breast cancer vaccine that prevents the tumour from spreading to other parts of the body.”