Researchers from Protagonist Therapeutics Inc. reported the preclinical characterization of PN-881, an oral macrocyclic peptide that inhibits the dimeric forms of IL-17 – AA, AF, and FF.

Aberrant activation of β-catenin, often due to mutations in its encoding gene or loss-of-function mutations in APC, contributes to tumor progression and therapy resistance, as seen in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), where approximately 30% of cases exhibit β-catenin activation.

Current therapies for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection can effectively suppress viral replication but do not achieve a functional or complete cure. Capsid assembly modulators inhibit the assembly of viral capsids, prevent the encapsidation of pregenomic RNA, and interfere with both the formation and amplification of covalently closed circular DNA, which is essential for viral persistence.

Traditional neoantigen prediction methods primarily rely on HLA-peptide binding databases, often producing false positives. This challenge highlights the need for improved strategies to identify truly immunogenic neoantigens. Neoantigen-based cancer vaccines have shown promising efficacy in recent clinical trials for treating solid tumors, offering a potential solution.

Both IL-15 and IL-2 are good options for cancer therapy, but IL-15 is considered superior due to lower vascular endothelial toxicity, stronger ability to expand natural killer and CD8+ T cells and weaker stimulation of T regulatory cells, but it has a short half-life and exerts severe adverse effects.