CD40 ligand + interleukin-2 vaccine (adenoviral)

This is an autologous cancer vaccine and gene therapy approach primarily developed for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The vaccine is produced by the ex vivo transduction of a patient's own CLL cells with replication-incompetent adenoviral vectors encoding human CD40 ligand (CD40L, also known as CD154) and interleukin-2 (IL-2). The expression of CD40L on the surface of the leukemia cells triggers the upregulation of essential co-stimulatory molecules such as CD80 and CD86, as well as the adhesion molecule CD54 (ICAM-1), effectively transforming the poorly immunogenic tumor cells into potent antigen-presenting cells. Simultaneously, the secretion of IL-2 by these cells enhances the activation and proliferation of leukemia-reactive T cells. Clinical studies have demonstrated that this adenoviral-mediated approach induces superior Th1 and Th2 anti-leukemia immune responses compared to plasmid-based methods, leading to improved progression-free survival in CLL patients.

Other names

adenoviral CD40L and IL-2 vaccineautologous CD40L/IL-2-transduced CLL cell vaccineAd-hCD40L + Ad-hIL-2 vaccine