Characterization of Spontaneous Immune Responses against Long Peptides Derived from Bcl-X(L) in Cancer Patients Using Elispot.

ABSTRACT: In recent years we and others have used the ELISPOT assay successfully to identify novel tumor antigens by the characterization of spontaneous HLA class I restricted immune responses against a number of minimal 9-10 amino acid long peptide epitopes. In the present study, we examined the capability of using longer peptides when scrutinizing Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PMBC) from melanoma patients for spontaneous immunity by means of ELISPOT IFN-γ secretion assay. To this end, we examined PBMC for the presence of specific T-cell responses against long peptides derived from the tumor associated antigen BCL-X(L). The protein product of the larger BCL-X(L) differs from Bcl-X(S) protein by an inserted region (amino acids 126-188). Thus, we scrutinized eight long peptides covering this in

SUBMITTER: Larsen SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3901095 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature