Overexpression of meloe gene in melanomas is controlled both by specific transcription factors and hypomethylation.

The melanoma antigens MELOE-1 and MELOE-2 are encoded by a messenger, called meloe, overexpressed in melanomas compared with other tumour cell types and healthy tissues. They are both able to elicit melanoma-specific T cell responses in melanoma patients, and MELOE-1-specific CD8 T cells have been involved in melanoma immunosurveillance. With the aim to develop immunotherapies targeting this antigen, we investigated the transcriptional mechanisms leading to the preferential expression of meloe messenger in the melanocytic lineage.

MELOE-1 antigen contains multiple HLA class II T cell epitopes recognized by Th1 CD4+ T cells from melanoma patients.

MELOE-1 is an overexpressed melanoma antigen containing a HLA-A2 restricted epitope, involved in melanoma immunosurveillance of patients adoptively transferred with tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL). The use of the full-length antigen (46 aa) for anti-melanoma vaccination could be considered, subject to the presence of Th epitopes all along MELOE-1 sequence. Thus, in this study we evaluated in vitro the immunoprevalence of the different regions of MELOE-1 (i.

A long peptide from MELOE-1 contains multiple HLA class II T cell epitopes in addition to the HLA-A*0201 epitope: an attractive candidate for melanoma vaccination.

CD4(+) T cells contribute importantly to the antitumor T cell response, and thus, long peptides comprising CD4 and CD8 epitopes may be efficient cancer vaccines. We have previously identified an overexpressed antigen in melanoma, MELOE-1, presenting a CD8(+) T cell epitope, MELOE-1(36-44), in the HLA-A*0201 context. A T cell repertoire against this epitope is present in HLA-A*0201+ healthy subjects and melanoma patients and the adjuvant injection of TIL containing MELOE-1 specific CD8(+) T cells to melanoma patients was shown to be beneficial.