Definition of the T Cell-Mediated Immune Response to Mammaglobin, a Novel Breast Cancer-Associated Protein
Abstract
The elucidation of the immune response to cancer should be of great help in the development of new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of breast cancer. Based on recent advances in our understanding of antigen recognition by T lymphocytes, it has been possible to identify several tumor-associated antigens (TAA) recognized by CTLs. However, the expression for these TAAs has been shown to be relatively low in breast cancer tumor cells. A new protein named mammaglobin has been demonstrated to be exclusively expressed in the mammary epithelium. In addition, 90% of primary breast cancer tumors have high levels of expression of the mammaglobin protein. Given the exclusive mammaglobin expression in breast cancer tumors, this novel protein may prove to be a TAA highly specific for breast cancer that could be utilized in the near future for in vitro breast cancer-specific activation of CTLs. The discovery of mammaglobin-derived antigenic peptides that are highly expressed in breast cancer tumor tissue and are recognized by CTLs offer many exciting future therapeutic options for the treatment of breast cancer.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADA386642
Entities
People
- Thalachallour Mohanakumar
Organizations
- Washington University in St. Louis