Are you interested in exploring collaboration possibilities?
Enter your information in the form and a representative will contact you shortly.
IL1RAP Blockade Mediates Anti-Fibrotic Effects in Pancreatic Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts
April 5, 2024
Introduction
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients have poor prognosis partly due to excessive activity of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). CAFs drive the fibrosis that causes excessive type III collagen and extracellular matrix deposition that in turn reduces drug response resulting in poor survival. High levels of the type III collagen serum biomarker nordicPRO-C3™ correlates with poor survival in PDAC. While TGF-β is thought to be one of the main drivers of nordicPRO-C3™ and tumor fibrosis, cytokines such as Interleukin 1 (IL-1) play a key role in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment and may play a significant role in also tumor fibrosis.
In this study, we first investigated the potential of IL-1 in activating fibroblasts to drive fibrosis and produce nordicPRO-C3™. Subsequently, we established a co-culture of pancreatic cancer cells and pancreatic CAFs to investigate the anti-fibrotic properties of nadunolimab, a fully humanized ADCC-enhanced monoclonal IgG1 antibody that targets IL1RAP and disrupts both IL-1α and IL-1β signaling.
Poster
Conclusion
Co-cultures of pancreatic tumor cells and CAFs induced formation, including collagen type III formation, and nadunolimab inhibited the collagen type III formation, suggesting anti-fibrotic properties. Activated fibroblasts had induced type III collagen formation (nordicPRO-C3™) suggesting that IL-1 is a driver of tumor fibrosis in PDAC. Nadunolimab, which is currently in clinical development for treatment of pancreatic cancer, has the potential to counteract the detrimental, fibrotic progression in tumors by targeting IL1RAP and blocking both IL-1α and IL-1β signaling. These findings suggest that nordicPRO-C3™ could potentially be used for prognostic/predictive enrichment and as a pharmacodynamic marker in future studies evaluating anti-IL-1 modalities in PDAC.
