Pancreas carcinoma antigen fused to invariant chain elicits T-cell response and tumor growth inhibition.

Objectives: The major histocompatibility complex class II chaperone invariant chain (Ii) is widely used as a carrier for inserted antigenic sequences and their introduction into the class II processing pathway. The tumor-associated antigen core 2beta 1,6 N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase (C2GnT), a glycosyltransferase present in human pancreatic tumor cells, is not expressed by normal pancreatic tissues.

Methods: A set of expression vectors was engineered where the class II binding region of Ii was replaced by C2GnT-derived sequences.