Dendritic Cell Vaccines May Be Novel Therapeutic Possibility.(Brief Article)

2001 JAN 31 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Researchers in Italy explored dendritic cell (DC) vaccine options for colorectal cancer patients.

"Few cases of anti-colon cancer specific T lymphocytes have been described so far," wrote A.J.A. Bremers and colleagues, Institute Nazional Studio & Cura Tumori, Unit Immunotherapy Human Tumors. "Moreover, the majority of these effectors were generated in vitro by stimulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from patients or healthy donors with peptides that were derived from proteins expressed and/or secreted by colon cancer tissue such as CEA, Mucin or Her-2/neu. The aim of our study was to evaluate the immunogenicity of colorectal carcinomas in an autologous setting."

Bremers et al. published their study in the International Journal of Cancer ("T-cell responses in colorectal cancer patients: Evidence for class IIHLA-restricted recognition of shared tumor-associated antigens," Int J Cancer, December 15, 2000;88(6):956-961).

The researchers borrowed the antigen processing and presentation capacity of DCs to create an in vitro autologous system that bypassed the need for obtaining tumor cells from culture. They generated DC from the adherent monocyte fraction of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) harvested from stage II/III colorectal cancer patients. They then prepared a single cell suspension using mechanical and enzymatic disruption of tumor samples immediately after surgical resection.

The DC were loaded with autologous tumor lysate which they had obtained from ...