Breast Tumor Immunity in the Paraneoplastic Neurologic Disorders.
Abstract
Paraneoplastic neurologic disease (PND) antigens are proteins normally expressed specifically in neurons that are expressed ectopically in tumors. It is believed that when expressed in tumors outside of the immunologically privileged nervous system, PND antigens stimulate the development of anti-tumor immunity, but also stimulate an autoimmune neuronal degeneration. We are studying PND's associated with breast cancer and immunity to the Nova and cdr2 antigens, assaying PND expression in clinical breast tumor specimens, and establishing animal models for the disorders. A prerequisite to studying the abnormal expression of PND antigens is an understanding of their normal expression. We have found that the Nova gene and antigen is normally restricted in expression to neurons. Strikingly, we have discovered that the cdr2 gene is widely expressed, but that its mRNA is under tight translational control, so that the cdr2 antigen is normally made only in neurons and (immune privileged) tests. This observation provides a novel insight to the biology; of breast tumors, suggesting that they may dysregulate translational control to express abnormal proteins, and alters our approach to the analysis of cdr2 expression in vivo. We have also made - significant progress in generating gene constructs to generate mouse models of FND.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 1996
- Accession Number
- ADA322781
Entities
People
- Robert B. Darnell
Organizations
- The Rockefeller University