| Title | Identification of an HLA-DPB1*0501 restricted Melan-A/MART-1 epitope recognized by CD4+ T lymphocytes: prevalence for immunotherapy in Asian populations. |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2011 |
| Authors | Meng, Zhaoting, Yadong Wang, Guanzhong Zhang, Yuehua Ke, Yanfeng Yan, Liangliang Wu, Qianrong Huang, Gang Zeng, Yu Wang, Han Ying, and Shunchang Jiao |
| Journal | Journal of immunotherapy (Hagerstown, Md. : 1997) |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pagination | 525-34 |
| Date Published | 2011 Sep |
| ISSN | 1537-4513 |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| DOI | 10.1097/QAI.0b013e3181fbc94f |
| Alternate Journal | J. Immunother. |
