A vaccine targeting mutant IDH1 in newly diagnosed glioma

Nature, 2021

The availability of anti-IDH1 R132H antibody clone H09 (DNA-DIA-H09, Dianova, Germany) developed by the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg has triggered fundamental advances for the 2016 WHO classification of CNS tumors (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27157931/ ). IDH1 R132H IHC has been introduced as a backbone for differential diagnosis of glioma. Now, early in 2021 in the Journal Nature, researchers from Heidelberg & Mannheim report for the first time promising effects of a IDH1 R132H mutation-specific vaccine in patients with malignant brain tumors. The vaccine triggered the desired immune response in the tumors and proved to be safe.

Up to now, therapy had usually only limited success in halting tumor progression in patients with diffuse gliomas characterized by an IDH1 mutation, which can be identified by antibody clone H09 (#DIA-H09, Dianova). We believe that the IDH1 R132H vaccine offers the potential for developing a treatment that can suppress these tumors more effectively and on a long-term basis,” commented study co-director Wolfgang Wick, Medical Director of the Neurological Clinic of Heidelberg University Hospital and Head of Division at DKFZ.

In their recently published study, Platten et al. describe a multicentre, single-arm, open-label, first-in-humans phase I trial that were carried out in 33 patients with newly diagnosed World Health Organization grade 3 and 4 IDH1(R132H)+ astrocytomas. The DKFZ announces "Promising preclinical results" in their press release from March 2021. The authors remark that “We cannot draw any further conclusions about the vaccine efficacy from this early study without a control group”. However, a phase II study to examine whether the IDH1 vaccine leads to better treatment results than the standard treatment alone is being prepared.

DNA-DIA-H09 (anti-IDH1 R132H antibody clone H09) for the identification of brain tumors carrying the IDH1 R132H point mutation is available at both BIOZOL´s and DIANOVA´s webshop.