Predicting and Preventing Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Toxicity: Targeting Cytokines

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China, is serious and has the potential to become an epidemic worldwide. Several studies have described typical clinical manifestations including fever, cough, diarrhea, and fatigue. However, to our knowledge, it has not been reported that patients with COVID-19 had any neurologic manifestations.

Pre-clinical mouse models suggest that the gut microbiome modulates tumor response to checkpoint blockade immunotherapy; however, this has not been well-characterized in human cancer patients. Here we examined the oral and gut microbiome of melanoma patients undergoing anti-PD-1 immunotherapy (n=112). Significant differences were observed in the diversity and composition of the patient gut microbiome of responders (R) versus non-responders (NR). Analysis of patient fecal microbiome samples (n=43, 30R, 13NR) showed significantly higher alpha diversity (p<0.01) and relative abundance of Ruminococcaceae bacteria (p<0.01) in responding patients. Metagenomic studies revealed functional differences in gut bacteria in R including enrichment of anabolic pathways. Immune profiling suggested enhanced systemic and anti-tumor immunity in responding patients with a favorable gut microbiome, as well as in germ-free mice receiving fecal transplants from responding patients. Together, these data have important implications for the treatment of melanoma patients with immune checkpoint inhibitors.