1. Transfected human dendritic cells to induce antitumor immunity.
- Author
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Rughetti, A, Biffoni, M, Sabbatucci, M, Rahimi, H, Pellicciotta, I, Fattorossi, A, Pierelli, L, Scambia, G, Lavitrano, M, Frati, L, and Nuti, M
- Subjects
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DENDRITIC cells , *GENE transfection , *IMMUNE response - Abstract
Dendritic cells are professional antigen-presenting cells able to prime naive T lymphocytes and regulate steadily the delicate balance between tolerance and activation during the immune response. In past years several reports have shown that genetically engineered dendritic cells (DCs) can be a powerful tool for inducing an antigen-specific immune response. The use of such modified antigen-presenting cells is a real working hypothesis in preclinical studies and in clinical vaccination approaches for cancer treatment. The definition of optimal transfection conditions for preserving DC survival and functionality is necessary to design a correct immunotherapeutic protocol. Different lipid-based transfec- tion compounds were studied for their effects on DC survival, phenotype and functional properties. All the transfection procedures were able to select DCs with a higher expression of activation and costimulatory molecules (ie MHCII-DR, CD83, CD86, CD25) than the untreated DCs. However, only two compounds (LipofectAMINE PLUS and FuGENE 6), preserved or even increased the immunopotency of DCs as antigen-presenting cells. These protocols were applied to modify DCs in order to express an epithelial tumor-associated antigen, MUC1, and such cells were able to induce in vitro a specific immune response in healthy donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2000
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