The anti-idiotypic approach to active specific immunotherapy of malignant melanoma

Abstract

This chapter presents a study that focuses on determining whether anti-idiotypic (anti-Id) monoclonal antibodies (mAb) that bear the internal image of human high molecular weight-melanoma associated antigen (HMW-MAA) represent useful immunogens to implement active specific immunotherapy in patients with malignant melanoma. The chapter reviews the rationale for selecting malignant melanoma and anti-Id mAb for the investigations, describes the characteristics of the HMW-MAA used as a target and of the anti-Id mAb used as an immunogen, and summarizes the results of the clinical trial with anti-Id mAb and discusses the significance of some of the results. The results from the study indicate that the mouse anti-Id mAb MK2-23 bears the internal image of the antigenic determinant recognized by anti-HMW-MAA mAb. The anti-Id mAb MK2-23 elicits a humoral anti-HMW-MAA immunity in hosts that express this antigen in their tissues, whereas HMW-MAA bearing human melanoma cells does not.