Tumor microenvironment changes after treatment with avelumab and immune- stimulating agent combinations in patients with advanced solid tumors

Background The use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has led to a paradigm change in cancer management. Many patients may have inherent primary resistance to ICIs or develop secondary resistance after initial response. The impact of using novel therapeutic combinations of checkpoint blockade (avelumab) with immune stimulating agonists such as anti- OX40 and/or anti- 4-1BB on the tumor microenvironment and modulation of the immune response is an intriguing strategy to evaluate how these agents interact and whether the hypothetical rationale for combinations can be translated into augmentation of anti-tumor immunity in solid tumors. Methods We performed whole exome sequencing (WES), bulk RNAseq, multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) and chromogenic immunohistochemistry (IHC) on tumor tissue and flow cytometry of the peripheral blood to study longitudinal changes following the combination of avelumab with utomilumab (a 4-1BB agonist) (arm A), PF-04518600 (an OX40 agonist) (arm B), utomilumab and PF-04518600 (arm C) and utomilumab and radiotherapy (arm D) in phase I/II study (NCT03217747). Results We observed low tumor mutation burden (TMB < 6) (median: 1.88), alteration of RTK-RAS, TP53, PI3K and WNT pathways across the cohorts. Mutations in TP53 , TTN and KRAS (mostly p.G12C, p.G12D) genes and copy number variations (CNV) were found in PIK3CA , CCNE1 and KRAS . Interferon gamma signaling pathway was enriched early on-treatment in tumors from patients with colorectal and pancreatic cancers in arm C. Patients deriving clinical benefit (CR/PR/SD ≥ 4 months) displayed higher T-cell frequencies at baseline (p = 0.0157), C1D15 (p = 0.0086), and C3D15 (p = 0.0070) than patients without clinical benefit. Conclusions Our findings, though limited, highlight genomic differences between histologic subsets and outcome as well as the need for combination strategies that drive the recruitment and/or priming of anti-tumor T cells and address low immune permissive tumor states in patients with advanced solid tumors. Clinical trial registration: This clinical trial was registered on clinicaltrials.gov NCT03217747.