Normal tissue depresses while tumor tissue enhances human T cell responses in vivo to a novel self/tumor melanoma antigen, OA1.

ABSTRACT: Antitumor T cells often recognize targets that are nonmutated "self" tissue differentiation Ags, but the relative impact of Ag expression by normal and transformed tissue for a human self/tumor Ag has not been studied. To examine the influence of self-tolerance mechanisms on the function of self/tumor-specific T cell responses in humans, we sought to identify an Ag that was expressed, processed, and presented in an MHC-restricted fashion by tumor cells, but for which there was the human equivalent of a "knockout." In this study, we report the first immunological characterization of a melanoma/melanocyte differentiation Ag, called OA1, which meets these criteria. This Ag, an X chromosome-encoded melanoma/melanocyte differentiation Ag, was completely deleted in a male patient. Using a newly

SUBMITTER: Touloukian CE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2241741 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature