We are working on a xenogeneous anticancer vaccine (a protein extract of avian-origin cells). Once we performed an experiment in prophylactic settings: there were three vaccinations (one per week). Then 30 days after the LAST vaccination the mice were challenged with Lewis Lung Carcinoma Cells. In the vaccinated group we observed the statistically significant inhibition of tumour growth and a decrease in metastasis formation compared to the unvaccinated group and, to a lesser extent, to mice immunized with antigens of Lewis Lung Carcinoma cells. I started to write an article, and stated that the studied vaccine elicited 1) a specific antitumour response and 2) an immune memory. My tutor objected these, saying that it is a false conclusion. So, my questions are: 1) if he is right, what else besides immune memory may provide the observed antitumour effect? 2) Is there a good reference to read about studies into prophylactic settings of anticancer vaccines? Which effects of vaccine application do they reveal?
Maybe this article can help you:
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/61/11/4497.short
Clara, thank you for the article.
It is very intresting and contains lots of useful references, but it doesn't completly fit the topic I am wondering about.
Without knowing more details about the protein component in your vaccine and also the nature of the vaccine itself it is difficult to make a firm comment here, however I do believe that one conclusion you could draw from your study is the one you made, however, without further experiments/information there are other possible interpretations that could be made - for instance - if your vaccine acted as a depot - it is possible to argue that an immune response was ongoing at the time of tumor challenge and that therefore there may not have been memory. Ultimately you would need to isolate splenic cells and show they harbored tumor-specific lymphocytes by staining for markers of immune memory and that they specifically killed the lewis lung cells in vitro. Also you might need to deplete mice of immune subpopulations (CD4+ or CD8+ or NK cells or B cells) to establish their importance.
I would like to understand the rationale behind using avian protein to vaccinate against a murine cancer cell line.
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