A Novel Recombinant Multi-Epitope Vaccine Could Induce Specific Cytotoxic T Lymphocyte Response In Vitro and In Vivo.

Background: Malignant tumor is still one of the important diseases worldwide, cytotoxic CD8+ T lymphocytes (CTLs) play an important role in killing tumor cells.

Objective: To enhance the immune response of our previously identified HLA-A2-restricted CTL epitopes, we designed a multiepitope YL66.

Method: The fusion protein GST-YL66 and DNA vaccine pcDNA3.1(+)-YL66 were used to induce CTLs from human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of HLA-A*02+ healthy donors and and in HLA-A2.1/Kb transgenic(Tg) mice. and the activity of induced CTLs were tested by IFN-γ relesde ELISPOT assay and LDH cytotoxicity assay.

Results: GST-YL66 induced CTL could lysis tumor cells and release IFN-γ both in vitro and in vivo, and pcDNA3.1(+)-YL66 could also induce significant CTL response in vivo.

Conclusion: The designed fusion multiepitope YL66 could be used as a vaccine against patients with tumors expressing COX-2 and/or MAGE-4.