RESUMO
Approaches to vaccine-based immunotherapy of human cancer may ultimately require targets that are both tumour-specific and immunogenic. In order to generate specific antitumour immune responses to lung cancer, we have sought lung cancer-specific proteins that can be targeted for adjuvant vaccine therapy. By using a combination of cDNA subtraction and microarray analysis, we previously reported the identification of an RNA-binding protein within the KOC family, L523S, to be overexpressed in squamous cell cancers of the lung. We show here that L523S exhibits significant potential for vaccine immunotherapy of lung cancer. As an oncofetal protein, L523S is normally expressed in early embryonic tissues, yet it is re-expressed in a high percentage of nonsmall cell lung carcinoma. The specificity of L523S expression in lung cancer was demonstrated by both mRNA and protein measurements using real-time PCR, Western blot, and immunohistochemistry analyses. Furthermore, we show that immunological tolerance of L523S is naturally broken in lung cancer patients, as evidenced by detectable antibody responses to recombinant L523S protein in eight of 17 lung pleural effusions from lung cancer patients. Collectively, our studies suggest that L523S may be an important marker of malignant progression in human lung cancer, and further suggest that treatment approaches based on L523S as an immunogenic target are worthy of pursuit.
Assuntos
Biomarcadores Tumorais/análise , Vacinas Anticâncer , Carcinoma Pulmonar de Células não Pequenas/genética , Regulação Neoplásica da Expressão Gênica , Neoplasias Pulmonares/genética , Proteínas de Ligação a RNA/análise , Western Blotting , Carcinoma Pulmonar de Células não Pequenas/imunologia , Carcinoma Pulmonar de Células não Pequenas/patologia , Progressão da Doença , Humanos , Imuno-Histoquímica , Neoplasias Pulmonares/imunologia , Neoplasias Pulmonares/patologia , Análise de Sequência com Séries de Oligonucleotídeos , Reação em Cadeia da Polimerase , Proteínas de Ligação a RNA/biossíntese , Proteínas de Ligação a RNA/imunologiaRESUMO
The present study utilizes an in vivo murine tumor expressing human Her-2/neu to evaluate potential Her-2/neu vaccines consisting of either full length or various subunits of Her-2/neu delivered in either protein or plasmid DNA form. Our results demonstrate that protective immunity against Her-2/neu-expressing tumor challenge can be achieved by vaccination with plasmid DNA encoding either full length or subunits of Her-2/neu. Partial protective immunity was also observed following vaccination with the intracellular domain (ICD), but not extracellular domain (ECD), protein subunit of Her-2/neu. The mechanism of protection elicited by plasmid DNA vaccination appeared to be exclusively CD4 dependent, whereas the protection observed with ICD protein vaccination required both CD4 and CD8 T cells.
