The present invention generally relates to T cells that are modified to enhance the efficiency of adoptive cellular therapy by modulating dendritic cell activity, a composition comprising modified T cells, vectors and methods for the treatment of cancer comprising administering modified T cells. In particular, the present invention provides modified T cells for use in adoptive cellular therapies for the treatment of solid tumours.

Provided are delivery immunostimulatory bacteria that have enhanced colonization of tumors, the tumor microenvironment and/or tumor-resident immune cells, and enhanced anti-tumor activity. The immunostimulatory bacteria are modified by deletion of genes encoding the flagella, or by modification of the genes so that functional flagella are not produced, and/or are modified by deletion of pagP or modification of pagP to produce inactive PagP product. As a result, the immunostimulatory bacteria are flagellin.sup. and/or pagP.sup.. The immunostimulatory bacteria optionally have additional genomic modifications so that the bacteria are adenosine or purine auxotrophs. The bacteria optionally are one or more of asd.sup., purI.sup., and msbB.sup.. The immunostimulatory bacteria, such as Salmonella species, are modified to encode immunostimulatory proteins that confer anti-tumor activity in the tumor microenvironment, and/or are modified so that the bacteria preferentially infect immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, or tumor-resident immune cells, and/or are modified to induce less cell death in immune cells than in other cells. Also provided are methods of inhibiting the growth or reducing the volume of a solid tumor by administering the immunostimulatory bacteria.

Provided by the disclosure are compositions and methods for modulating differentiation of regulatory T cells. In some embodiments, methods include selectively decreasing IL-23R activity and/or IL-23R expression without significantly decreasing IL-12R activity and/or IL-12R expression.

Methods to treat cancer in a subject comprising administering to the subject a therapeutically effective amount of T-cells of the subject having increased IRF4 polypeptide expression compared to a control are disclosed. Also disclosed are methods of increasing tumor reactivity of a T-cell by increasing IRF4 polypeptide expression, and methods to predict the likelihood that a subject having cancer will respond therapeutically to administered T-cells having increased IRF4 polypeptide expression. Also disclosed are compositions comprising a T-cell and a viral vector encoding an IRF4 polypeptide. The compositions are methods are useful for treating numerous cancers in which higher level expression of IRF4 in T-cells would be beneficial. In some embodiments, activated tumor-specific T-cells having increased IRF4 expression have greater infiltration in tumors and enhanced local immunological responses.

The present disclosure relates to IL2 agonists with improved therapeutic profiles.

The present disclosure relates to methods for expanding and increasing the cytotoxic activity of natural killer cells comprising co-culturing, as feeder cells, a population of myeloid leukemia cells engineered to express one or more of membrane-bound IL-21 (mbIL-21) or membrane-bound IL-15 (mbIL-15) in the presence of cytokine support. The present disclosure also relates to a population of acute myeloid leukemia cells engineered to express one or more of membrane-bound IL-21 (mbIL-21) or membrane-bound IL-15 (mbIL-15). The present disclosure also relates to methods of treating cancer employing the step of expanding natural killer cells using feeder cells engineered to express one or more of membrane-bound IL-21 (mbIL-21) or membrane-bound IL-15 (mbIL-15).

The present disclosure relates to IL2 agonists with improved therapeutic profiles.

A polypeptide comprising the sequence of SEQ. ID NO. 2, 3, 4, 7 or 8. The polypeptide may have the sequence of an immunogenic fragment thereof comprising at least eight amino acids, wherein the immunogenic fragment is not one of SEQ. ID NOS. 6 or 11 to 16. The polypeptide may have a sequence having at least 80% sequence identity to the aforementioned polypeptide or immunogenic fragment. The polypeptide is less than 100 amino acids in length and does not comprise the sequence of any of SEQ. ID NOS. 10, 46, 56, 57 or 59 to 62 and does not consist of the sequence of SEQ ID NO. 58. The polypeptide is useful in the treatment or prophylaxis of cancer.

A polypeptide comprising the sequence of SEQ. ID NO. 2, 3, 4, 7 or 8. The polypeptide may have the sequence of an immunogenic fragment thereof comprising at least eight amino acids, wherein the immunogenic fragment is not one of SEQ. ID NOS. 6 or 11 to 16. The polypeptide may have a sequence having at least 80% sequence identity to the aforementioned polypeptide or immunogenic fragment. The polypeptide is less than 100 amino acids in length and does not comprise the sequence of any of SEQ. ID NOS. 10, 46, 56, 57 or 59 to 62 and does not consist of the sequence of SEQ ID NO. 58. The polypeptide is useful in the treatment or prophylaxis of cancer.

GPC3 T cell antigen coupler (TAC) polypeptides having (i) an antigen-binding domain that binds GPC3, (ii) an antigen-binding domain that binds a protein associated with a TCR complex, and (iii) a T cell receptor signaling domain polypeptide are provided.