Induction of antitumor cytotoxic T lymphocytes with a MAGE-3-encoded synthetic peptide presented by human leukocytes antigen-A24

For the development of immunotherapy using MAGE peptides, the identification of additional tumor antigens is required. Because HLA-A24 is the most common allele in Japanese and is also frequently present in Caucasians, MAGE-3-encoded synthetic peptides with binding affinity for HLA-A24 were thus tested for the induction of specific CTLs from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of HLA-A24 healthy donors using a simplified method. By using a peptide with a sequence of IMPKAGLLI (amino acid position in MAGE-3 195-203), the CTL responses could thus be induced from unseparated PBMCs by stimulation with freshly isolated, peptide-pulsed PBMCs as antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and by also using interleukin 7 and keyhole limpet hemocyanin for a primary culture. The induced CTLs could lyse HLA-A24 carcinoma cells expressing MAGE-3, as well as the peptide-pulsed target cells, in an HLA class-I restricted manner. The identification of the MAGE-3/HLA-A24 peptide, IMPKAGLLI, may thus potentially offer the opportunities to design peptide-based immunotherapeutic approaches that might prove to be effective in treating patients with MAGE-3-positive malignant tumors.