Cancer-associated antigens and methods of their identification and use
View Patent ↗The present invention provides novel, isolated, tumor-associated antigens, and methods for identifying such antigens in a biological sample, and of screening for the presence of such an antigen in a biological specimen, wherein the tumor antigen identified reacts with serum from a subject treated with a vaccine comprising a cytokine and proliferation-incompetent tumor cells which express the tumor-associated antigen. Also provided are kits for carrying out the methods of the invention.
1. A composition for generating an immune response to a human prostate tumor-associated antigen in a human subject, comprising:
a proliferation-incompetent cell engineered to express GM-CSF selected from LnCaP and PC3, wherein said composition is capable of eliciting a humoral immune response to a prostate tumor-associated antigen with a molecular weight selected from the group consisting of 250 kD, 160 kD, 150 kD. 31 kD, 26 kD and 14 kD, as detected by SDS-PAGE, wherein said humoral immune response is not detected in said human subject prior to administering said composition and said prostate tumor-associated antigen does not cross-react immunologically with prostate-specific antigen.
2. The composition of claim 1 , wherein said proliferation-incompetent cell is an LnCaP cell.
3. The composition of claim 1 , wherein said proliferation-incompetent cell is a PC3 cell.
4. The composition of claim 2 , further comprising a proliferation-incompetent PC3 cell.
5. The composition of claim 1 , wherein said prostate tumor-associated antigen has a molecular weight of 250 kD.
6. The composition of claim 4 , wherein said LnCaP and PC3 cells are administered to said human subject in equal doses.
7. The composition of claim 6 , wherein said dose of LnCaP and PC3 cells is 6×107 cells per cell type.
8. The composition of claim 4 , wherein said LnCaP and PC3 cells are administered subcutaneously.
9. The composition of claim 4 , wherein said LnCaP and PC3 cells express 200–300 ng GM-CSF per 106 cells.