Paper: Targeting VISTA may benefit prostate cancer patients

Researchers said targeting immune checkpoint V-region immunoglobulin-containing suppressor of T cell activation (VISTA) may be useful in treating prostate cancer, a disease that has thus far responded poorly to immune checkpoint therapies. A group including University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center scientists published their findings in a paper in Nature Medicine.

Following treatment with Yervoy ipilimumab, an anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein 4 (CTLA4; CD152) mAb that did not lead to clinical responses, genomic analysis of prostate cancer patients showed significantly greater expression of PD-1, PD-L1 and VISTA in patients’ tumors. The researchers wrote that VISTA represented a compensatory inhibitory pathway in prostate tumors following Yervoy therapy...