Quanquan Ding

UPMC | UPMC · Immunology

Background Neoadjuvant PD-1 blockade produces major pathological responses (MPR) in ~30% of patients (pts) with high-risk resectable MEL with durable relapse-free benefit, and increased circulating activated CD8+ T cells.1,2 Vidutolimod (vidu) comprises a CpG-A oligodeoxynucleotide packaged within a virus-like particle (VLP) and is designed to acti...

Intratumoral TLR9 agonists and anti-PD-1 provide durable clinical responses and broad immune activation. To evaluate efficacy and mechanisms of action of this combined treatment, we conducted a single-arm phase 2 neoadjuvant study of TLR9 agonist vidutolimod combined with anti-PD-1 nivolumab (vidu/nivo) in patients with high-risk resectable melanom...

T cell immunoglobulin mucin domain-containing protein 3 (Tim-3) negatively regulates innate and adaptive immunity in cancer. To identify the mechanisms of Tim-3 in cancer immunity, we evaluated the effects of Tim-3 blockade in human and mouse melanoma. Here, we show that human PD-1+Tim-3+ CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) upregulate phosph...

Ample evidence indicates that the gut microbiome is a tumor-extrinsic factor associated with antitumor response to anti-programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) therapy, but inconsistencies exist between published microbial signatures associated with clinical outcomes. To resolve this, we evaluated a new melanoma cohort, along with four published dat...

Background and Objectives To our knowledge, no comprehensive update of the descriptive epidemiology and trends of ischemic stroke has been released since Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017. To examine ischemic stroke burdens at global, regional and national levels in terms of sex, age and social development index (SDI). Methods Data were extracte...

Background: Monoclonal antibodies (mAb) targeting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) receptor provide durable long-term benefit in a subset of patients (pts) with advanced melanoma with response rates of 35-42% and 4-year progression-free survival (PFS) rate of 27%. Separately, the composition of the gut microbiota has been shown to correla...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.641188.].

Precisely controlled lymphocyte migration is critically required for immune surveillance and successful immune responses. Lymphocyte migration is strictly regulated by chemokines and chemokine receptors. Here we show that protein geranylgeranylation, a form of post-translational protein lipid modification, is required for chemokine receptor-proxima...

New fecal microbiota for cancer patients The composition of the gut microbiome influences the response of cancer patients to immunotherapies. Baruch et al. and Davar et al. report first-in-human clinical trials to test whether fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) can affect how metastatic melanoma patients respond to anti–PD-1 immunotherapy (see...

Background Neoadjuvant PD-1 blockade produces major pathological responses (MPR) in ~30% of patients (pts) with high-risk resectable melanoma (MEL) with durable relapse-free benefit, and increased circulating activated CD8+ T cells. 1 2 CMP-001 is a type A CpG packaged within a virus-like particle that activates tumor-associated plasmacytoid dendri...

Purpose: Natural Killer (NK) cells play a critical role in tumor immunosurveillance. Multiple activating and inhibitory receptors regulate NK cell-mediated tumor control. The inhibitory receptor TIGIT and its counter-receptor CD226 exert opposite effects on NK cell-mediated tumor reactivity. Experimental design: We evaluated the frequency, pheno...

T cells play a critical role in promoting tumor regression in both experimental models and humans. Yet, T cells that are chronically exposed to tumor antigen during cancer progression can become dysfunctional/exhausted and fail to induce tumor destruction. Such tumor-induced T cell dysfunction may occur via multiple mechanisms. In particular, immun...

Ficolin-2 is an important serum complement lectin. Here, we describe novel findings indicating that serum ficolin-2 concentrations in multiple tumor patients are significantly lower than those in healthy donors. Administration of exogenous ficolin-2 or ficolin-A (a ficolin-2-like molecule in mouse), with only once, could remarkably inhibit the tumo...

Macrophages are the primary host target cells of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb). However, little is known about the changes of membrane glycopatterns of macrophages in response to M. tb infection. Using lectin microarrays we compared the differential expression of glycopatterns of macrophages upon stimulation with the heat-inactivated virulent M...

Human ficolin-2 is an important lectin complement pathway activator that is secreted from liver cells and has been implicated as an anti-infection innate immune molecule. However, the role of ficolin-2 protein and its dynamic changes over the course of and in the prognosis of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain uncle...

Ficolins are serum complement lectins, with a structure similar to mannose-binding lectin (MBL) and lung surfactant protein (SP)-A and SP-D. Ficolins activate the lectin complement system and play important roles in host innate immunity. Ficolins are members of the collectin family of proteins, which act as pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). The...