title: Ovarian cancer: designing effective vaccines and specific diagnostic tools.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Notwithstanding a renewed interest in the application of immunotherapy as an alternative to chemotherapy and radiotherapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer (OC), and in spite of the available knowledge about ovarian tumor-associated-antigens, the search for a vaccine against OC remains a scientific and clinical challenge. Likewise, immunodiagnostics can detect only a late stage of the disease. Thus, the development of new therapeutic and diagnostic options is highly desirable.
  
  
  METHODS
  Based on the low-similarity hypothesis, which supports the concept that immunogenicity is preferentially associated to sequences with no/low-similarity to the host proteome, and using Protein Information Resource peptide match program, we searched the ovarian tumor antigen CA125 for amino acid sequences unique to CA125 and absent in the remaining human proteins.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We identified a set of 159 pentapeptides unique to CA125 that might be used to design specific and effective immunological tools for diagnosis and treatment of OC.
authors.affiliation: Department Biosciences, Biotechnologies & Biopharmaceutics, University of Bari, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: Jean Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Spinosa
authors.forename: Darja
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kanduc
mesh_terms: D018394:CA-125 Antigen / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D019496:Cancer Vaccines; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D018604:Epitope Mapping / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D056724:Immunity, Humoral; D007167:Immunotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D040901:Proteomics; D012984:Software
chemical_list: D018394:CA-125 Antigen; D019496:Cancer Vaccines; C451759:MUC16 protein, human; D008565:Membrane Proteins; D010446:Peptide Fragments