IFN{gamma} markedly cooperates with intratumoral dendritic cell vaccine in dog tumor models.

Dendritic cell (DC)-based immunotherapy can trigger effective immune responses against cancer in human patients. Although accompanied by little toxicity, further improvements are needed to optimize immune responses for fully satisfactory clinical outcomes. IFNγ, a potent inducer of T helper type 1 immune responses, is considered an important tool to realize improvements.

Effect of IL-12 on canine dendritic cell maturation following differentiation induced by granulocyte-macrophage CSF and IL-4.

IL-12 is a cytokine produced by dendritic cells (DC) and activates cytotoxic T cells and NK cells against tumors. We investigated the effect of IL-12 on DC. When peripheral blood monocytes were incubated with canine granulocyte-macrophage (GM)-CSF and IL-4, expression of MHC class II, CD1a, CD80 and CD86 was significantly elevated, but the cell morphology was that of immature DC.

Construction of an expression vector for improved secretion of canine IL-18.

To construct a vector for caspase-1 independent expression of canine IL-18, the signal sequence of canine IL-12p40 was fused to the sequence of mature IL-18 on the NdeI restriction site which is located at the 3' end of the signal sequence. The resulting vector expressed coding protein from transfected mammalian cells. The expressed protein was shown to have IL-18 bioactivity in a INF-gamma-inducing assay.