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Cancer/testis antigens expression and autologous serological response in a set of Brazilian non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients

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Abstract

Background

Based on their tumor-associated expression pattern, cancer/testis antigens (CTAs) are considered potential targets for cancer immunotherapy. We aim to evaluate the expression of CTAs in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) samples and the ability of these patients to elicit spontaneous humoral immune response against CTAs.

Methods

Expression of MAGE-A family, CT7/MAGE-C1, CT10/MAGE-C2, GAGE and NY-ESO-1 was analyzed by immunohistochemistry in a tissue microarray generated from 106 NHL archival cases. The humoral response against 19 CTAs was tested in 97 untreated NHL serum samples using ELISA technique.

Results

11.3 % of NHL tumor samples expressed at least 1 CTA. MAGE-A family (6.6 %), GAGE (5.7 %) and NY-ESO-1(4.7 %) were the most frequently expressed antigens. We found no statistically significant correlation between CTA positivity and clinical parameters such as NHL histological subtype, Ann Arbor stage, international prognostic index score, response to treatment and overall survival. Humoral response against at least 1 CTA was observed in 16.5 % of NHL serum samples. However, overall seroreactivity was low, and strong titers (>1:1000) were observed in only two diffuse large B-cell lymphomas patients against CT45.

Conclusion

Our findings are in agreement with most of published studies in this field to date and suggest an overall low expression of CTAs in NHL patients. However, as many new CTAs have been described recently and some of them are found to be highly expressed in NHL cell lines and tumor samples, further studies exploring the expression of different panels of CTAs are needed to evaluate their role as candidates for immunotherapy in NHL patients.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by grants from CAPES (RJI) and CNPq (GWBC).

Conflict of interest

The authors do not have any financial or non-financial competing interests for publication of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Oncologia Clinica e Experimental, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, Rua Botucatu, 740, 3° andar, Hematologia, Vila Clementino, Sao Paulo, SP, 04023-900, Brazil

    Riguel J. Inaoka, Leina Y. Etto & Gisele W. B. Colleoni

  2. Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research New York Branch, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, Box 32, New York, NY, 10021-6007, USA

    Achim A. Jungbluth, Sacha Gnjatic, Erika Ritter, Nicole C. Hanson, Denise Frosina & Jodie Tassello

  3. Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa, Insper. Rua Quata, 300, Vila Olimpia, Sao Paulo, SP, 04546-042, Brazil

    Adriana B. Bortoluzzo

  4. Departamento de Anatomia Patologica, Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo, Rua Botucatu, 740, Vila Clementino, Sao Paulo, SP, 04023-900, Brazil

    Antonio C. Alves

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  1. Riguel J. Inaoka
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  11. Gisele W. B. Colleoni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gisele W. B. Colleoni.

Additional information

Riguel J. Inaoka and Achim A. Jungbluth are contributed equally to this manuscript.

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Inaoka, R.J., Jungbluth, A.A., Gnjatic, S. et al. Cancer/testis antigens expression and autologous serological response in a set of Brazilian non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients. Cancer Immunol Immunother 61, 2207–2214 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00262-012-1285-6

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