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Updated: Nov 16, 2025
Isolation and Characterization of Tumor-initiating Cells from Sarcoma Patient-derived Xenografts
Published on: June 13, 2019
Associations of PD-L1, PD-L2, and HLA class I expression with responses to immunotherapy in patients with advanced
S Miwa1, T Nojima2, A A Alomesen2
1Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa University, 13-1 Takara-machi, Kanazawa, 920-8640, Japan. smiwa001@yahoo.co.jp.
Background:
Although immunotherapy is thought to be a promising cancer treatment, most patients do not respond to immunotherapy. In this post hoc analysis of a phase 1/2 study, associations of programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1), PD-L2, and HLA class I expressions with responses to dendritic cells (DCs)-based immunotherapy were investigated in patients with advanced sarcoma.
Methods:
This study enrolled 35 patients with metastatic and/or recurrent sarcomas who underwent DC-based immunotherapy. The associations of PD-L1, PD-L2, and HLA class I expressions in tumor specimens, which were resected before immunotherapy, with immune responses (increases of IFN-γ and IL-12) and oncological outcomes were evaluated.
Results:
Patients who were PD-L2 (+) showed lower increases of IFN-γ and IL-12 after DC-based immunotherapy than patients who were PD-L2 (-). The disease control (partial response or stable disease) rates of patients who were PD-L1 (+) and PD-L1 (-) were 0% and 22%, respectively. Disease control rates of patients who were PD-L2 (+) and PD-L2 (-) were 13% and 22%, respectively. Patients who were PD-L1 (+) tumors had significantly poorer overall survival compared with patients who were PD-L1 (-). No associations of HLA class I expression with the immune response or oncological outcomes were observed.
Conclusions:
This study suggests that PD-L1 and PD-L2 are promising biomarkers of DC-based immunotherapy, and that addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors to DC-based immunotherapy may improve the outcomes of DC-based immunotherapy.
