Technological aspects of creating neopeptide vaccines

Abstract

Personalized neoantigen vaccines are a group of individually designed cancer vaccines that enhance patients’ own antigen-specific immune responses. These include vaccines based on dendritic cells, DNA, mRNA and synthetic peptides. An analysis of 98 clinical trials of neoantigenic vaccines from the ClinicalTrials.gov database found that peptide vaccines are one of the most popular cancer vaccines, accounting for about 50 % of clinical trials. They usually consist of a mixture of long or short peptides, dissolved depending on their properties in an appropriate solvent, and an adjuvant that stabilizes and increases their effectiveness. The most used immunoadjuvants in the formulation of neopeptide vaccines are Toll-like receptor agonists (poly-ICLC) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor. The development of neoantigenic vaccines presents a number of distinctive challenges compared to other types of vaccines. The process should cover and validate the various steps in the development, production and administration processes in order to maximize the efficacy and safety of vaccines. In the technology for the production of peptide vaccines, 3 main stages can be distinguished: 1) screening and identification of neoepitopes using the approaches of computer prediction, co-immunoprecipitation, mass spectrometry and cytotoxic experiments; 2) synthesis of peptides by methods of standard solid-phase synthetic peptide chemistry; 3) actually obtaining a vaccine preparation suitable for storage, transportation and administration to the patient. Taking into account the specificity of the drug, the manufacturing process must be carried out strictly according to the Good Manufacturing Practice standard with mandatory quality control of intermediate and finished products