The paper by Dr. Hiroshi Kagamu, Scientific Advisor of ImmuniT Research Inc. as well as Professor at Department of Respiratory Medicine, Saitama Medical University International Medical Center, was on-line published in “Cancer Research”

The paper written by Professor Hiroshi Kagamu at Respiratory Medicine at Saitama Medical University International Medical Center as a first author was on-line published in Cancer Immunology Research.

The title of this paper is:
Single-cell analysis reveals a CD4+ T cell cluster that correlates with PD-1 blockade efficacy

In this paper, the authors performed single-cell gene expression analysis to identify CD4 T-cell clusters involved in anti-tumor immunity. As a result, among the CD62Llow CD4+ T-cell subtypes, the cell frequencies of two clusters, CXCR3+ CCR4- CCR6+ and CXCR3- CCR4- CCR6+, in peripheral blood were significantly correlated to the progression-free survival and overall survival of lung cancer patients after anti-PD-1 antibody therapy, as well as the numbers of these two subtypes in CD4 T cell infiltration in the tumor microenvironment. The two clusters of cells both highly express IL-7 receptor and TCF7, proposed to collectively call them Th7R. The authors conclude that Th7R is a cluster that can predict immune status and susceptibility to treatment with PD-1 blockade, suggesting that this may open the way for strategies of personalized anti-cancer immunotherapy.

[Supplement]

A part of the contents of this article is patent pending by Saitama Medical University. ImmuniT Research Inc. has obtained an exclusive license from Saitama Medical University. A part of this exclusive license has been sub-licensed to Boehringer Ingelheim and others.

ImmuniT Research has a research laboratory in Saitama Medical University Research Park to further develop the patent application under a collaborative research agreement with Saitama Medical University.