Novel design enhances GM-CSF tumor vaccine.(Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor)

2002 OCT 16 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - A cancer vaccine now undergoing clinical evaluation might be enhanced by simply changing the form in which it is presented.

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) tumor vaccines have shown promise for their ability to stimulate immune system response against cancer. Officials at the Immune Response Corporation in Carlsbad, California, recently announced they have enhanced GM-CSF tumor vaccine cancer fighting ability by expressing GM-CSF as a membrane bound form (mbGM-CSF). According to them, the membrane bound form of GM-CSF boosts immunogenicity.

The premise behind the novel design is that tumor cells containing mbGM-CSF on their surface are more potent antigens than tumor cells that secrete GM-CSF, which is what current tumor vaccines typically do.

So far, mbGM-CSF has been investigated in murine melanoma models, said S. Yei and coauthors.

"We observed that mbGM-CSF on the tumor cell surface retarded growth and induced protective immunity to subsequent wild-type tumor challenge more effectively than tumor cells secreting GM-CSF," said Yei and colleagues.

Irradiated melanoma cells bearing mbGM-CSF prevented new tumor growth when mice were injected with wild-type melanoma cells, diminished the size of established tumors, and prevented melanoma cell ...