Hodgkin's lymphoma RNA-transfected dendritic cells induce cancer/testis antigen-specific immune responses.

Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) can kill Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) cells, and CTL have been used for the treatment of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive HL. For patients with EBV-negative HL, this strategy cannot be employed and alternative target structures have to be defined. In order to establish a system for the stimulation of HL-reactive T cells, we used dendritic cells (DC) as antigen-presenting cells for autologous T cells and transfected these DC with RNA from established HL cell lines.