Induction of Specific CTLs and Their Tumor Suppressing Activity in BALB/c Mice by Peptide HER2/neu Immunization / 中国肿瘤生物治疗杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective: To study the cellular immune responses and the anti-tumor effects induced by peptides derived from onco-protein HER2/neu. Methods: Two HER2/neu peptides compatible with H-2Kd binding motif as tumor rejection antigens were synthesized. The ability of inducing peptide-specific CTLs and suppressing the tumor growth in BALB/c mice immunized by HER2/neu peptide was analyzed. Results: HER2/neu peptides could promote the proliferation of BALB/c lymphocytes both in vitro and in vivo. HER2/neu peptide-specific CTLs could be induced from peptide-immu-nized BALB/c mice, which showed specifically killing effects on HER2/neu positive SP2/OHER2 cells but not on HER2/neu negative SP2/O cells. Moreover, the growth of SP2/OHER2 tumor were significantly suppressed in BALB/c mice immunized with HER2/neu peptides. Conclusion: These results suggested that it was feasible to use MHC-I epitopes derived from tumor-specific antigens as vaccines for cancer immunotherapy.