Efficacy of melanoma vaccines enhanced in the absence of B lymphocytes.

2004 SEP 1 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Researchers have enhanced the efficacy of melanoma vaccine in the absence of B lymphocytes.

According to recent research from the United States, "Provoking a specific cellular immune response against tumor-associated antigens is a promising therapeutic strategy to treat cancers with defined antigens such as melanoma. In recent clinical trials, however, immune responses against melanoma antigens have been elicited without consistent clinical responses, suggesting the need for approaches that potentiate the specific cellular immune response. Since B lymphocytes have been reported to exert a negative effect on the cellular arm of the immune response in certain model systems, the authors compared the protective immunity elicited by melanoma antigens in B cell-deficient muMT mice to that obtained in fully immunocompetent C57BL/6 mice."

"Immunization with melanoma-associated antigens was accomplished using recombinant adenovirus (Ad) vectors encoding human gp 100 (Ad2/gp100) or murine TRP-2 (Ad2/mTRP-2)," said Michael A. Perricone and colleagues at Genzyme Corporation. "A single dose of Ad2/gp100 or Ad2/mTRP-2 inhibited the growth of established subcutaneous B16 melanoma tumors in B cell-deficient but not wild-type C57BL/6 mice. The enhanced tumor protection observed in B cell-deficient mice appeared to be associated with potentiation of the magnitude and longevity of the specific cellular immune response."

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