Molecular characterization of melanoma-derived antigens.

In the last decade, many antigens expressed by tumors and recognized by the immune system have been identified. Melanoma was among the first tumors found to express such tumor-associated antigens, and, therefore, melanoma is currently one of the best and extensively studied tumors for which new techniques have been introduced to optimize the characterization of tumor antigens. In this chapter, we discuss the techniques used for identification of melanoma-expressed antigens recognized by cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs). In more detail, we describe in Subheading 3. the reverse immunology method.