Vaccination with tumor cells engineered to secrete interleukin 2-immunoglobulin G fusion protein induces tumor rejection

Here we provide proof that the injection of tumor cells engineered to secrete interleukin 2 (IL-2)-IgG chimeric proteins locally induces potent antitumor responses, which are more effective than tumor transfection with IL-2 alone. Murine plasmacytoma cells (J558L) were stably transfected with DNA coding for a human IL-2-IgG1 or a murine IL-2-IgG2b fusion protein and were injected s.c. into syngeneic BALB/c mice. Evaluation of tumor growth and rejection patterns showed that IL-2-IgG secretion by transfected J558L tumor cells induced their rejection in all animals tested, similar to the rejection of J558L cells engineered to secrete IL-2 alone, whereas treatment with parental cells was lethal. However, mice treated with IL-2-IgG-secreting J558L cells (human IL-2-IgG1 and murine IL-2-IgG2b) exhibited a significantly stronger tumor immunity against a later challenge with parental J558L cells than mice treated with IL-2-secreting tumor cells.