Enhancement of anti-murine colon cancer immunity by fusion of a SARS fragment to a low-immunogenic carcinoembryonic antigen.
BACKGROUND
It is widely understood that tumor cells express tumor-associated antigens (TAAs), of which many are usually in low immunogenicity; for example, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is specifically expressed on human colon cancer cells and is viewed as a low-immunogenic TAA. How to activate host immunity against specific TAAs and to suppress tumor growth therefore becomes important in cancer therapy development.


RESULTS
To enhance the immune efficiency of CEA in mice that received, we fused a partial CEA gene with exogenous SARS-CoV fragments. Oral vaccination of an attenuated Salmonella typhimurium strain transformed with plasmids encoding CEA-SARS-CoV fusion gene into BALB/c mice elicited significant increases in TNF-α and IL-10 in the serum. In addition, a smaller tumor volume was observed in CT26/CEA-bearing mice who received CEA-SARS-CoV gene therapy in comparison with those administered CEA alone.


CONCLUSIONS
The administration of fusing CEA-SARS-CoV fragments may provide a promising strategy for strengthening the anti-tumor efficacy against low-immunogenic endogenous tumor antigens.
Department of Biological Science and Technology, National Chiao-Tung University, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. liaonms@pchome.com.tw.
Chen-Si
CS
Lin
Shih-Han
SH
Kao
Yu-Cheng
YC
Chen
Chi-Han
CH
Li
Yuan-Ting
YT
Hsieh
Shang-Chih
SC
Yang
Chang-Jer
CJ
Wu
Ru-Ping
RP
Lee
Kuang-Wen
KW
Liao