@article {3257,
	title = {Identification of an HLA-DPB1*0501 restricted Melan-A/MART-1 epitope recognized by CD4+ T lymphocytes: prevalence for immunotherapy in Asian populations.},
	journal = {Journal of immunotherapy (Hagerstown, Md. : 1997)},
	volume = {34},
	year = {2011},
	month = {2011 Sep},
	pages = {525-34},
	abstract = {CD4 T lymphocytes play a central role in orchestrating an efficient antitumor immune response. Much effort has been devoted in the identification of major histocompatibility complex class II eptiopes from different tumor-associated antigens. Melan-A/MART-1 is expressed specifically in normal melanocytes and tumor cells of 75\% to 100\% of melanoma patients. Melan-A/MART-1 is considered as an attractive target for cancer immunotherapy. In the past, several human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II restricted epitopes have been identified and characterized, including Melan-A/MART-11-20 (HLA-DR11 restricted), Melan-A/MART-125-36 (HLA-DQ6 and HLA-DR3 restricted), Melan-A/MART-127-40 (HLA-DR1 restricted), Melan-A/MART-151-73 (HLA-DR4 restricted), Melan-A/MART-191-110 (HLA-DR52 restricted), and Melan-A/MART-1100-111 (HLA-DR1 restricted). Owing to the infrequent expression of the above HLA class II alleles in Asian populations, immunotherapy using these defined Melan-A/MART-1 peptides could potentially only benefit a very small percentage of Asian melanoma patients. In this study, we established several CD4 T-cell clones by in vitro stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from a healthy donor by a peptide pool of 28 to 30 amino acid long peptides spanning the entire Melan-A/MART-1 protein. These CD4 T-cell clones recognized a peptide that is embedded within Melan-A/MART-121-50, in a HLA-DPB1*0501 restricted manner. Finally, we demonstrated that this epitope is naturally processed and presented by dendritic cells. HLA-DPB1*0501 is frequently expressed in Asian population (44.9\% to 73.1\%). Therefore, this epitope could provide a new tool and could significantly increase the percentage of melanoma patients that can benefit from cancer immunotherapy.},
	keywords = {Antigens, Neoplasm, Asian Continental Ancestry Group, CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes, Cell Line, Tumor, Dendritic Cells, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte, Histocompatibility Testing, HLA-DP beta-Chains, Humans, Immunotherapy, MART-1 Antigen, Melanocytes, Melanoma, T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic},
	issn = {1537-4513},
	doi = {10.1097/QAI.0b013e3181fbc94f},
	author = {Meng, Zhaoting and Wang, Yadong and Zhang, Guanzhong and Ke, Yuehua and Yan, Yanfeng and Wu, Liangliang and Huang, Qianrong and Zeng, Gang and Wang, Yu and Ying, Han and Jiao, Shunchang}
}
