Concise review: Engineering the fusion of cytokines for the modulation of immune cellular responses in cancer and autoimmune disorders

As our understanding of the basic precepts of immunobiology continue to advance at a rapid pace, translating such discoveries into meaningful therapies for patients has proved challenging. This is especially apparent in the use of cytokine-based immunotherapies for cancer. Unanticipated and serious side effects, as well as low objective response rates seen in clinical trials, have dealt setbacks to the field. Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) and common ˠ-chain (ˠ-c) interleukins are cytokines that have been used as stand-alone immunotherapies with moderate success. Our group has found that the fusion of GM-CSF to members of ˠ-c interleukins results in the generation of novel proteins with unique signaling properties and unheralded biological effects. These fusion proteins, termed GIFT (GM-CSF interleukin fusion transgenes) fusokines, are the result of combining GM-CSF and a ˠ-c interleukin into a single, bifunctional polypeptide. In our experience, GIFT fusokines often confer immune cells with a gain of function that cannot be explained by the mere sum of their constituent moieties. They act as bispecific ligands, coupling activated GM-CSF and interleukin receptors together to drive unique downstream signaling events. The synergy that arises from these fusions has shown great promise in its ability to modulate the immune response and overcome maladaptive biological processes that underlie diseases such as cancer and autoimmune conditions. In this review, we discuss the ways in which the GIFT fusokines are able to alter the immune response, particularly in disease states, with a special emphasis on how these novel molecules may be translated into effective therapies in the clinical setting.