New Paper - A04 Hartmann
15.08.2024
New publication from Gunther Hartmann's group in collaboration with Rayk Behrendt's group
The implementation of targeted molecular therapies and immunotherapy in melanoma vastly improved the therapeutic outcome in patients with limited efficacy of surgical intervention. Nevertheless, a large fraction of patients with melanoma still remain refractory or acquire resistance to these new forms of treatment, illustrating a need for improvement. Here, we report that the clinically relevant combination of mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathway inhibitors dabrafenib and trametinib synergize with RIG-I agonist-induced immunotherapy to kill BRAF-mutated human and mouse melanoma cells. Kinase inhibition did not compromise the agonist induced innate immune response of the RIG-I pathway in host immune cells. In a melanoma transplantation mouse model, the triple therapy outperformed individual therapies. Our study suggests that agonist-induced activation of RIG-I with its synthetic ligand 3pRNA could vastly improve tumor control in a substantial fraction of patients with melanoma
receiving MAP kinase inhibitors.
published in Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids: Synthetic RIG-I agonist-mediated cancer immunotherapy synergizes with MAP kinase inhibition against BRAF-mutated melanoma
