Demethylation of Cancer/Testis Antigens and CpG ODN Stimulation Enhance Dendritic Cell and Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Function in a Mouse Mammary Model

Abstract

Background. Cancer/testis antigens (CTAs) are ideal targets for cancer immunotherapy in virtue of their restricted expression profile in normal tissues. However, CTA-targeted immunotherapy has been rather disappointing clinical setting for CTAs are downregulated by cytosine-phosphate-guanosine (CpG) methylation in their promoter regions, so that tumor cells have low immunogenicity. Methods. We reinduced mouse CTA P1A through demethylation process and generated P1A-specific cytotoxic lymphocytes (CTLs) by immunizing BALB/c (H-2d) mice with dendritic cells pulsed with a P1A-specific peptide and CpG oligodeoxynucleotide (ODN) immune adjuvant. Results. We found that demethylation and CpG ODN immune adjuvant stimulation facilitated DC maturation and enhanced the allogenic capacity of P1A-specific CTLs against target cells both in vitro and in vivo. Conclusions. Our results suggested that CTA induction and immune adjuvant stimulation is a feasible strategy in cancer immunotherapy.

Molecular Pathways: At the Crossroads of Cancer Epigenetics and Immunotherapy

“…þ and CD8 þ T and/or NK cells (11,(35)(36)(37)(38). Interestingly, in the murine renal cell carcinoma RENCA model, HDACi combined with IL2 was demonstrated to impair the function of the T-regulatory (Treg) immunosuppressive cells, by downregulating the expression of their master transcription factor Foxp3.…”