MUC1 Antigen-Specific CD8 T Lymphocytes Targeting MCF7 and MDA-MB-231 Human Breast Adenocarcinoma Cell Lines

Panagiotis Parsonidis,Ioannis Papasotiriou,Dimitrios-Athanasios Ntanovasilis

doi:10.4236/jct.2019.107041

Abstract

MUC1 is an antigen that is overexpressed on the cell surface of many human breast adenocarcinomas and other types of cancer. The cancer immunity cycle has seven steps, starting with release of cancer cell antigen and following with cancer antigen presentation. Priming, activation and trafficking of T cells to tumors are the next steps and the infiltration of T cells into tumors, the recognition of cancer cells by T cells and killing of cancer cells are the final steps. We have tested a synthetic peptide for the MUC1 antigen and generated dendritic cells (DCs) that were pulsed with the specific peptide. Mature DCs were used to activate naive T cells to differentiate into antigen-specific CTLs. CTLs were tested for proliferation, cytokine release (IFNγ), activation markers and cytotoxicity against human breast adenocarcinoma cell lines. The cytotoxic effect of those CTLs was higher against MCF7 human cell line than against MDA-MB-231 human cell line.

Highlights

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women
Cytotoxic T lymphocytes generated from naïve CD8 T cells seem to have potent cytotoxic activity and can be used in adoptive immunotherapy [3] [4]
The present study aimed to extend the possibility of using MUC1-derived T cell epitopes to induce immunotherapeutic approaches

Summary

Introduction

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. Conventional treatment approaches, such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, endocrine therapy and surgery, have become efficient over the last decades, but they still have limitations regarding the response and the development of resistance. The new approaches are moving towards the development of personalized, targeted therapies, including immunotherapies, which will minimize resistance with lower toxicity and higher specificity [1]. Cancer immunotherapy is triggering patient’s immune system to attack and kill tumor cells. Adoptive immunotherapy is the ex vivo activation and expansion of tumor-specific immune cells and infusion of those cells into cancer patients. Molecular identification of human cancer antigens and in vitro techniques, which are allowing generation of large numbers of dendritic cells (DCs) that are presenting cancer antigens to T cells, have given new prospects at the concept of cancer immunotherapy [5]

Methods

Results

Conclusion