Insight of melanoma and its treatments with oncolytic adenoviruses: combined therapies leading to oncolytic vaccine formulation.

Insight of melanoma and its treatment, with a focus on NRAS mutated melanoma, who still represents an unmet medical need in terms of available strategies against it. A novel oncolytic vaccine platform has been thought to be effective in the cure of this cancer, through the combination of a novel engineered oncolytic adenoviral vector named Ad5/3-D24-ICOSL-CD40L coated or combined with tumor epitopes coming from the melanoma itself. Preliminary and in vitro efficacy studies have been performed to check the chosen melanoma cell line characteristics and the oncolysis activity of the vector considering also the physico-chemical characterization and screening of the chosen epitopes. Nevertheless, in vivo studies through xenograft/allograft mouse model allowed to confirm the therapeutic efficiency of the oncolytic vaccine. Further ex vivo studies will allow to understand the immune system’ role in terms of TILs, immunogenic cell death hallmarks exposure and cell viability from explanted tissues.