Purpose: Reliable data on the persistence of tumor expression of cancer-testis (CT) antigens over time and consequent analyses of the effect of CT antigen expression on the clinical course of malignancies are crucial for their evaluation as diagnostic markers and immunotherapeutic targets. Experimental Design: Applying conventional reverse transcription-PCR, real-time PCR, and Western blot, we did the first longitudinal study of CT antigen expression in multiple myeloma analyzing 330 bone marrow samples from 129 patients for the expression of four CT antigens (MAGE-C1/CT7, MAGE-C2/CT10, MAGE-A3, and SSX-2). Results: CT antigens were frequently and surprisingly persistently expressed, indicating that down-regulation of these immunogenic targets does not represent a common tumor escape mechanism in myeloma. We observed strong correlations of CT antigen expression levels with the clinical course of myeloma patients as indicated by the number of bone marrow^residing plasma cells and peripheral paraprotein levels, suggesting a role for CT antigens as independent tumor markers. Investigating the prognostic value of CT antigen expression in myeloma patients after allogeneic stem cell transplantation, we found that expression of genes, such as MAGE-C1, represents an important indicator of early relapse and dramatically reduced survival. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that CTantigens might promote the progression of multiple myeloma and especially MAGE-C1/CT7, which seems to play the role of a ''gatekeeper'' gene for other CT antigens, might characterize a more malignant phenotype. Importantly, our study also strongly supports the usefulness of CTantigens as diagnostic and prognostic markers as well as therapeutic targets in myeloma.Cancer-testis (CT) antigens are a diverse group of genes of which more than 40 families have been identified during the past 15 years (1). CT antigens have been considered promising targets for immunotherapy of human malignancies based on their tumor-restricted expression and on their immunogenicity in cancer patients. Both of these characteristics could render CT antigens important diagnostic and prognostic markers; however, thus far, this aspect of the biology of CT antigens has not intensively been explored.Although an impressive number of studies have shown expression of CT antigens in a large variety of human tumor types on the RNA as well as on the protein level (2), there has not been a single study analyzing the expression of CT antigens in a human cancer over time. This seems surprising because reliable data on the persistence of tumor-related CT antigen expression are a prerequisite for the evaluation of these tumorspecific proteins as diagnostic markers and immunotherapeutic targets, especially considering data suggesting that immunoselection might lead to down-regulation or loss of CT antigen expression in cancer patients (3,4).We have recently shown that CT antigens are commonly expressed and are capable of inducing antibody-mediated and T-cell -mediated immunity in m...
BackgroundMultiple myeloma is a life-threatening disease and despite the introduction of stem cell transplantation and novel agents such as thalidomide, lenalidomide, and bortezomib most patients will relapse and develop chemoresistant disease. Therefore, alternative therapeutic modes for myeloma are needed and cancer-testis antigens such as MAGE-C1/CT7 and MAGE-A3 have been suggested to represent a class of tumor-specific proteins particularly suited for targeted immunotherapies. Surprisingly, the biological role of cancer-testis genes in myeloma remains poorly understood. Design and MethodsWe performed the first investigation of the function of two cancer-testis antigens most commonly expressed in myeloma, MAGE-C1/CT7 and MAGE-A3, using an RNA interferencebased gene silencing model in myeloma cell lines. Functional assays were used to determine changes in proliferation, cell adhesion, chemosensitivity, colony formation, and apoptosis resulting from gene-specific silencing. ResultsWe show that the investigated genes are not involved in regulating cell proliferation or adhesion; however, they play an important role in promoting the survival of myeloma cells. Accordingly, knock-down of MAGE-C1/CT7 and MAGE-A3 led to the induction of apoptosis in the malignant plasma cells and, importantly, both genes were also essential for the survival of clonogenic myeloma precursors. Finally, silencing of cancer-testis genes further improved the response of myeloma cells to conventional therapies. ConclusionsCancer-testis antigens such as MAGE-C1/CT7 and MAGE-A3 play an important role in promoting the survival of myeloma cells and clonogenic precursors by reducing the rate of spontaneous and chemotherapy-induced apoptosis and might, therefore, represent attractive targets for novel myeloma-specific therapies.Key words: cancer-testis antigens, gene function, RNAi, apoptosis, tumor immunology, multiple myeloma, stem cell transplantation.Citation: Atanackovic D, Hildebrandt Y, Jadczak A, Cao Y, Luetkens T, Meyer S, Kobold S, Bartels K, Pabst C, Lajmi N, Gordic M, Stahl T, Zander AR, Bokemeyer C, promote the survival of multiple myeloma cells. Haematologica 2010;95:785-793. doi:10.3324/haematol.2009 This is an open-access paper. © F e r r a t a S t o r t i F o u n d a t i o n Cancer-testis antigens MAGE-C1/CT7 and MAGE-A3 promote the survival of multiple myeloma cells
The abilities of chemokines in orchestrating cellular migration are utilised by different (patho-)biological networks including malignancies. However, except for CXCR4/CXCL12, little is known about the relation between tumour-related chemokine expression and the development and progression of solid tumours like breast cancer. In this study, microarray analyses revealed the overexpression of chemokine CXCL13 in breast cancer specimens. This finding was confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction in a larger set of samples (n ¼ 34) and cell lines, and was validated on the protein level performing Western blot, ELISA, and immunohistochemistry. Levels of CXCR5, the receptor for CXCL13, were low in malignant and healthy breast tissues, and surface expression was not detected in vitro. However, we observed a strong (P ¼ 0.0004) correlation between the expressions of CXCL13 and CXCR5 in breast cancer tissues, indicating a biologically relevant role of CXCR5 in vivo. Finally, we detected significantly elevated serum concentrations of CXCL13 in patients with metastatic disease (n ¼ 54) as compared with controls (n ¼ 44) and disease-free patients (n ¼ 48). In conclusion, CXCL13 is overexpressed within breast cancer tissues, and increased serum levels of this cytokine can be found in breast cancer patients with metastatic disease pointing to a role of CXCL13 in the progression of breast cancer, suggesting that CXCL13 might serve as a useful therapeutic target and/or diagnostic marker in this malignancy.
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