Molecular basis of T cell-mediated recognition of pancreatic cancer cells

Cancer Res. 2001 Mar 1;61(5):2038-46.

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer continues to be a major unsolved health problem in the world. The prognosis of pancreatic cancer is extremely poor with a median survival of 3-4 months and the 5-year survival being 1-4%. This poor prognosis is primarily because of a lack of effective therapies, and thus development of new treatment modalities is needed. One of these treatments could involve specific immunotherapy, for which elucidation off the molecular basis of T cell-mediated recognition of cancer cells is required. We report here six different genes and 19 immunogenic epitopes from pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells and T-cell receptor beta usage of HLA-A2-restricted CTL clones reacting to some of these epitopes. Sixteen of 19 epitopes were found to possess the ability to induce HLA-A2-restricted CTL activity in the peripheral blood lymphocytes of patients with pancreatic and also colon adenocarcinomas. These results should provide a scientific basis for the development of specific immunotherapy for pancreatic and colon cancer patients.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • COS Cells
  • Cricetinae
  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / immunology
  • HLA-A2 Antigen / genetics
  • HLA-A2 Antigen / immunology
  • HLA-A2 Antigen / metabolism
  • Humans
  • Interferon-gamma / biosynthesis
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Oligopeptides / immunology
  • Oligopeptides / metabolism
  • Pancreatic Neoplasms / genetics
  • Pancreatic Neoplasms / immunology*
  • Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta / immunology
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / immunology*
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / metabolism
  • Transfection

Substances

  • Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte
  • HLA-A2 Antigen
  • Oligopeptides
  • Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, alpha-beta
  • Interferon-gamma