%0 Journal Article
%T Evaluation of dendritic cells loaded with apoptotic cancer cells or expressing tumour mRNA as potential cancer vaccines against leukemia
%A Silvija Jarnjak-Jankovic
%A Rolf D Pettersen
%A Stein S£¿b£¿e-Larssen
%A Finn Wesenberg
%A Gustav Gaudernack
%J BMC Cancer
%D 2005
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2407-5-20
%X This study focuses on dendritic cell (DC) vaccination of childhood leukemia and evaluates the in vitro efficacy of different strategies for antigen loading of professional antigen-presenting cells. We have compared DCs either loaded with apoptotic leukemia cells or transfected with mRNA from the same leukemia cell line, Jurkat E6, for their capacity to induce specific CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses. Monocyte-derived DCs from healthy donors were loaded with tumor antigen, matured and co-cultured with autologous T cells. After one week, T-cell responses against antigen-loaded DCs were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (ELISPOT) assay.DCs loaded with apoptotic Jurkat E6 cells or transfected with Jurkat E6-cell mRNA were both able to elicit specific T-cell responses in vitro. IFN¦Ã-secreting T cells were observed in both the CD4+ and CD8+ subsets.The results indicate that loading of DCs with apoptotic leukemia cells or transfection with tumour mRNA represent promising strategies for development of cancer vaccines for treatment of childhood leukemia.Leukemia represents the most common form of cancer in children. There are two main types of childhood leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The success rate in treatment of childhood leukemia has improved continuously over the past decades [1], and today disease-free survival is 70%¨C80% for ALL and 40%¨C60% for AML [2-4]. In the Nordic countries the overall event-free survival in ALL has risen from 57% to75% [2]. However, in children with high-risk ALL, the progress has only been modest. The relapse rate has decreased in parallel with the improving results, but the prognosis after relapse has not improved. Only 25%¨C30% of children who relapse will reach and remain in a second remission. Children with AML have a worse prognosis than those with ALL. Event-free survival for AML is below 55%, whereas the cure rate for children with ALL is near 80%. The complete remission rate diff
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/5/20