Immunological Prevention of Spontaneous Mammary Carcinoma in Transgenic Mice
Abstract
Our purpose is to explore the possibility of employing immunological intervention to hamper the carcinogenic process and the growth of spontaneous mammary carcinomas in mice. The final scope is to get enough information to decide whether a similar approach may be applied in humans at risk. The mammary glands of female mice transgenic for the rat HER2/neu oncogene progress to carcinomas. Whether, at what stage and how nonspecific immunity elicited by IL-12 hampers this progression was evaluated in Balb/c and FVB Mice. In both mouse strains, 5-day courses of 50/100 ng IL-l2/day inhibited carcinogenesis when they coincided with the progression of early lesions. inhibition appears to mostly depend on IL-12's ability to interfere with early tumor angiogenesis. Later treatments are less effective and lower IL-12 doses are useless. The efficacy of specific immunity has been evaluated by immunizing these mice with peptides from rat Her-2/neu product admixed with cytokines able to recruit dendritic bells. Adenocarcinoma cells expressing the rat Her-2/neu and secreting various cytokines are currently engineered. In the meantime, immunization of normal and transgenic mice with allogeneic rat Her-2/neu tumor cells inhibits a subsequent challenge with syngeneic Her-2/neu adenocarcinomas. As specific immunity can be elicited, its potential against spontaneous carcinomas is being evaluated.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 1999
- Accession Number
- ADB259044
Entities
People
- Guido Forni
Organizations
- University of Turin