Viral chemokine fusions trigger antitumor immunity independent of chemotaxis.

2004 SEP 1 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Genetic fusions with viral chemokines target delivery of nonimmunogenic antigen to trigger antitumor immunity independent of chemotaxis.

"The ideal vaccine carrier should be able to target antigen delivery and possibly recruit antigen-presenting cells (APC) and deliver an activation signal to promote adaptive immune responses. Ligands for chemokine receptors expressed on APC may be attractive candidates, as they can both target and attract APC. To investigate the requirement for APC recruitment, we used a pair of viral chemokines, agonist herpes simplex virus 8-derived macrophage inflammatory protein-I (vMIP-I) and antagonist MC148, which induce and suppress chemotaxis, respectively," scientists writing in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology report.

"Chemokine-antigen fusions efficiently delivered a model nonimmunogenic tumor antigen to APC for processing and presentation to antigen-specific T cells in vitro," said Pier Adelchi Ruffini at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and collaborators in the U.S., Norway, and Italy. "Physical linkage of chemokine and antigen and specific binding of chemokine receptor by the fusion protein were required. Mice immunized with vMIP-I or MC148 fusion DNA vaccines ...