In vivo enhancement of the MAGE-specific cellular immune response by a recombinant MAGE1-MAGE3-TBHSP70 tumor vaccine

• Published in: Cancer cell international Vol. 16; no. 1; p. 45
• Main Authors: Junwei, Wang, Xiumin, Zhan, Jing, Ye, Shoujing, Yang, Zengshan, Li
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central 17.06.2016
• Subjects: Primary Research; Vaccine; Melanoma-specific antigens; Immunotherapy; Cytotoxic T cell response
• ISSN: 1475-2867; 1475-2867
• DOI: 10.1186/s12935-016-0317-2

Since cytotoxic T cell (CTL) response is the major cellular type in attacking tumor cells, most immunotherapy targets to manipulate the CTL response. Immunotherapies targeting melanoma-specific antigens (MAGEs), a group of tumor-specific shared antigen, have shown to be promising. Our previous study has shown that MAGE1/TBHSP70 and MAGE3/TBHSP70 could induce a robust immune response against B-16 melanoma cells in C57BL/6 mice. In this study, we used an animal model to further demonstrate MAGEs as a potential immunotherapy target for tumorigenesis in vivo. In the current study, we developed a MAGE1/MAGE3/TBHSP70 recombinant protein vaccine and evaluated its protective efficacy against tumor development by challenge vaccine-immunized mice with MAGE-expressing human tumor cell lines in a Hu-PBL-SCID mouse model. The cellular immune reactions were monitored by ELISPOT and cytotoxicity assays. Splenocytes isolated from vaccine-immunized mice presented potent cytokine secretion capacity and CTL-specific cytotoxic. Vaccine-immunized mice had a significant tumor regression and prolonged survival compared with controls (both p < 0.05). In vitro, rMAGE1-MAGE3-TBHSP70 showed a potent tumor-antigen-specific immune response in both hepatocellular carcinoma and pulmonary carcinoma cell lines. This newly-developed recombinant protein vaccine may serve as a new immunotherapy for cancer.