Using in silico transcriptomics to search for tumor-associated antigens for immunotherapy

• Published in: Vaccine Vol. 19; no. 17; pp. 2607 - 2614
• Main Authors: Vinals, Carla, Gaulis, Swann, Coche, Thierry
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 21.03.2001; Elsevier
• Subjects: Antigens, Neoplasm - genetics; Antigens, Neoplasm - isolation & purification; Antineoplastic agents; Biological and medical sciences; Breast Neoplasms - genetics; Breast Neoplasms - immunology; Cancer antigens; Cancer Vaccines - genetics; Cancer Vaccines - isolation & purification; Colonic Neoplasms - genetics; Colonic Neoplasms - immunology; Databases, Factual; EST; Expressed Sequence Tags; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Genetic Testing; Genome, Human; Humans; Immunotherapy; Immunotherapy - methods; Male; Mathematics in biology. Statistical analysis. Models. Metrology. Data processing in biology (general aspects); Medical sciences; Neoplasms - genetics; Neoplasms - immunology; Neoplasms - therapy; Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial - genetics; Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial - immunology; Oncogenes; Pharmacology. Drug treatments; Prostatic Neoplasms - genetics; Prostatic Neoplasms - immunology; silicon; Tissue profiling; Cancer antigens; EST; Tissue profiling; Human; Tumor specific antigen; Tumor associated antigen; Genomics; Transcriptome; Review; Malignant tumor; Screening; Database; Genome; Expressed sequence tag; Bioinformatics; Computer aided analysis
• ISSN: 0264-410X; 1873-2518
• DOI: 10.1016/S0264-410X(00)00500-4

Immunotherapy approaches to fight cancer are based on the principle of mounting an immune response against a self-antigen expressed by the tumor cells. In order to reduce potential autoimmunity side-effects, the antigens used should be as tumor-specific as possible. A complementary approach to experimental tumor antigen discovery is to screen the human genome in silico, particularly the databases of “Expressed Sequence Tags” (ESTs), in search of tumor-specific and tumor-associated antigens. The public databases currently provide a massive amount of ESTs from several hundreds of cDNA tissue libraries, including tumoral tissues from various types. We describe a novel method of EST database screening that allows new potential tumor-associated genes to be efficiently selected. The resulting list of candidates is enriched in known genes, described as being expressed in tumor cells.