Abstract
Recently, several genes encoding tumor rejection antigens recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) have been identified. We investigated the expression of MAGE-1, MAGE-3, and GAGE genes in 108, 111, and 63 patients, respectively, with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN). Reverse-transcription and polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis using primers specific for each gene revealed that MAGE-1, MAGE-3, and GAGE genes were expressed 27.8%, 47.4%, and 41.3% of patients with SCCHN, respectively. We also tried to achieve in vitro CTL induction against MAGE-3 encoding tumor rejection antigen (FLWGPRALV), which is presented by HLA-A2 molecule, using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from HLA-A2-positive donors. Dendritic cells were propagated from the PBMCs with interleukin-4 (IL-4) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF). The dendritic cells were pulsed with the peptide FLWGPRALV and used as antigen-presenting cells. The PBMC including the peptide-pulsed dendritic cells, were cultivated with medium containing IL-1, IL-2, IL-4 and IL-6. These in vitro -induced effector cells showed significant cytotoxicity against a SCCHN cell line expressing both HLA-A2 and the MAGE-3 gene. These results suggest that patients with SCCHN would be good candidate for specific immunotherapy against tumor antigen peptide.
