@inbook{7913257bf26c4b59a3f121c3de925522,
title = "T cells as antigen carriers for anti-tumor vaccination",
abstract = "The exploitation of the physiologic processing and presenting machinery of dendritic cells (DCs) by in vivo loading of tumor-associated antigens may improve the immunogenic potential and clinical efficacy of DC-based cancer vaccines. The approach developed by our group was based on the clinical observation that some patients treated with the infusion of donor lymphocytes transduced to express the HSV-TK suicide gene for relapse of hematologic malignancies, after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, developed a T cell-mediated immune response specifically directed against the HSV-TK gene product. We demonstrated that lymphocytes genetically modified to express HSV-TK as well as self/tumor antigens, acting as antigen carriers, efficiently target DCs in vivo in tumor-bearing mice. The infusion of TRP-2-transduced lymphocytes induced the establishment of protective immunity and long-term memory in tumor-bearing mice by cross-presentation of the antigen mediated by the CD11c + CD8a + DCs subset. A similar approach was applied in a clinical setting. Ten patients affected by MAGE-3 + metastatic melanoma were treated with autologous lymphocytes retrovirally transduced to express the MAGE-3 tumor antigen. In three patients, the treatment led to the increase of MAGE-3 specific CD8+ and CD4+ effectors and the development of long-term memory, which ultimately correlated with a favorable clinical outcome. Transduced lymphocytes represent an efficient way for in vivo loading of tumor-associated antigens of DCs.",
keywords = "Active immunotherapy, Cross-presentation, Tumor antigens",
author = "Catia Traversari and Vincenzo Russo",
year = "2016",
month = apr,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1007/978-1-4939-3338-9_9",
language = "English",
volume = "1393",
series = "Methods in Molecular Biology",
publisher = "Humana Press Inc.",
pages = "97--104",
booktitle = "Methods in Molecular Biology",
}