Tumor-associated antigens show promise for prostate cancer vaccines.

2004 JUL 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Scientists have identified potential tumor-associated antigens for the development of prostate cancer vaccines.

According to published research from Norway, "Serological cloning of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) using patient autoantibodies and tumor cDNA expression libraries (SEREX) has identified a wide array of tumor proteins eliciting B-cell responses in patients. However, alternative cloning strategies with the possibility of high throughput analysis of patient sera and tumor libraries may be of interest. We explored the pJuFo phage surface display system, allowing display of recombinant tumor proteins on the surface of M13 filamentous phage, for cloning of TAAs in prostate cancer (PC)."

"Control experiments established that after a few rounds of selection on immobilized specific IgG, a high degree of enrichment of seroreactive clones was achieved," said Alexander Fossa and colleagues at Norwegian Radium Hospital. "With an increasing number of selection rounds, a higher yield of positive clones was offset by an apparent loss of diversity in the repertoire of selected clones. Using autologous patient serum IgG in a combined biopanning and immunoscreening approach, we identified 13 different TAAs. Three of these (NY-ESO-1, Lage-1, and Xage-1) were known members of the cancer/testis family of TAAs, and one other protein had previously been isolated by SEREX in cancer types other than PC."

"Specific IgG responses ...