Immune profiling-based targeting of pathogenic T cells with ustekinumab in ANCA-associated glomerulonephritis

Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)–associated vasculitis is a life-threatening autoimmune disease that often results in kidney failure caused by crescentic glomerulonephritis (ANCA-GN). To date, treatment of most patients with ANCA-GN relies on unspecific immunosuppressive agents that harbor serious adverse effects and limited efficiency. By performing spatial and single-cell transcriptome analysis, we characterized inflammatory niches in the kidneys of 34 patients with ANCA-GN and identified pro-inflammatory, cytokine producing CD4+ (TH1 and TH17 subsets) and CD8+ T cells (TC1 and TC17-like subsets) as a key pathogenic signature. Digital pharmacology identified ustekinumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting IL-12 and IL-23 in these T cells, as the most promising therapeutic drug to target. Based on these findings, four patients with relapsing ANCA-GN were treated with ustekinumab in combination with low-dose cyclophosphamide. Ustekinumab was given subcutaneously (90 mg) at weeks 0, 4, 12, and 24 and clinical and renal responses were evaluated at week 26. This treatment was well-tolerated and induced clinical response in all ANCA-GN patients, including an improved kidney function and Birmingham Vasculitis Activity Score. Our findings suggest that the pathogenesis-based treatment of ANCA-GN patients with ustekinumab is efficacious and warrants further investigation in clinical trials. Overall design: ScRNA-seq of human samples from the kidney and peripheral blood, specifically from individuals with ANCA-associated glomerulonephritis, was performed from FACS-sorted CD3 positive T cells using the Chromium Next GEM Single Cell 5' Kit v2 (10x Genomics) according to manufacturer's instructions. Libraries were sequenced aiming at 50,000 reads per cell on an Illumina NovaSeq™ (P150).