Immunomodulatory effects of topical artesunate on cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 2/3.

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Despite the advent of prophylactic vaccines to prevent infection with oncogenic human papillomaviruses (HPVs), the incidence of cancers caused by HPV remains high, both in the US and world-wide. Intraepithelial HPV cancer precursors present an opportunity for cancer interception: they are relatively accessible and clinically indolent, making it possible to carry out window-of- opportunity, proof-of-concept treatment trials without compromising standard of care. However, while trials testing therapeutic HPV vaccines to treat CIN2/3, the precursor to HPV cervical cancers, have shown partial success, their focus has been upon generating HPV-specific immune responses. HPV oncogenes driving transformation present rational antigenic targets, yet little is known about mechanisms of histologic regression. The projects we propose will focus on the lesion itself. There is an increasing appreciation of the role of microbes at the gut and other niches in cancer, and evidence of dysbiosis in the context of CIN. Currently, our understanding of the functional contributions of tumor microbiomes to tissue susceptibility to treatment is incomplete, in part owing to difficulty in obtaining longitudinal data from human interventional trials. We will analyze subject-matched, clinically annotated specimens collected before, during, and after treatment, from a novel interventional clinical trial testing treatment of CIN2/3 with a repurposed, topical formulation of artesunate, a plant-derived compound used as part of frontline treatment for acute malaria. (NCT02354534) The clinical outcomes from were highly impactful; histologic regression (HR) occurred in 19/28 (68%) of treated subjects -- more than twice the expected rate of spontaneous regression observed over the same timeframe. We will now build on this promising clinical data to determine tissue-based biomarkers of response to ART, as well as phenotypes of treatment resistance, with the intent of developing next-generation interventions to treat CIN and HPV-related malignancies at other anatomic sites. We will capitalize on a unique extant biorepository, and an outstanding team of expert scientists to study constituents of the tumor microenvironment (TME), including tumor and immune cells, microbes, and metabolites, in subject-matched samples of responders vs non-responders. Insights gained will inform strategies to overcome ART treatment resistance. Finally, this work will begin to address an enormous unmet clinical need for accessible treatment options for incipient HPV cancers, which now are either excisional or ablative, and require sequential access to health care infrastructure. An inexpensive, self-administered, non-surgical treatment without cold chain requirements would be transformative.