title: Peptide epitope identification for tumor-reactive CD4 T cells.
abstract: Because T lymphocytes have the capacity to recognize tumor cells, significant efforts are being devoted towards the development of T cell-based immunotherapy for cancer. Most of this work has centered in the induction of anti-tumor CD8 T cells, which exhibit cytolytic activity towards tumor cells expressing tumor-specific or tumor associated antigens. Unfortunately to this day, T cell-based immunotherapy for cancer remains suboptimal. One of the possible explanations is that these immunotherapies have ignored the role that CD4 T helper lymphocytes play in the generation and persistence of CD8 T cell responses. Thus, we believe that in order to obtain clinical benefits T cell-based immunotherapy must stimulate both CD8 and CD4 tumor-reactive T cell responses. During the past seven years our group has focused on the identification of CD4 T cell epitopes from tumor-associated and tumor-specific antigens that could be used to complement the already identified CD8 T cell epitopes to produce effective vaccination strategies against numerous tumor types. We will describe here the strategy we used that resulted in the identification and characterization of numerous CD4 T cell epitopes that are applicable to developing therapies against hematological malignancies and solid tumors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Asahikawa Medical College, Asahikawa, Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroya
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Esteban
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Celis
mesh_terms: D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D000956:Antigens, Viral / Q000737:chemistry; D018984:Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000276:immunology*; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry / Q000276:immunology; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000276:immunology; D006377:T-Lymphocytes, Helper-Inducer / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm; D000956:Antigens, Viral; D018984:Epitopes, T-Lymphocyte; D010455:Peptides