[Development of Immunotherapy to Target Autophagy‒Dependent Immune Evasion in Pancreatic Cancer]

Autophagy has recently been shown to promote the immune evasion in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) via lysosomal degradation of MHC‒Ⅰ. Since PDAC shows high levels of basal autophagy, autophagy has been proposed as a tumor‒specific target in combination with immunotherapy. We have developed an oncolytic adenovirus OBP‒702 carrying the tumor suppressor gene p53 and have demonstrated its therapeutic potential to induce cytopathic effect and activate antitumor immunity via p53 induction. In this study, we investigated the role of autophagy inhibition to promote the efficacy of OBP‒702 in PDAC.