Submitted January 18, 2006
Accepted July 12, 2006
Immune competence of cancer-reactive T cells generated
de novo in adult tumor-bearing mice
Kenneth F May, Kenneth D Lute, Ergun Kocak, Shahab Abdessalam, Lijie Yin, Ou Li, Zhen Guan, Gary Philips, Pan Zheng, and yang Liu*
Division of Cancer Immunology Department of Pathology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Department of Physiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Center for Biostatistics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Division of Cancer Immunology Department of Pathology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OHy
* Corresponding author; email: yangl{at}umich.edu.
The impact of timing of antigen introduction into fetus
and neonates leads to the suggestion that pre-existing
antigens are tolerogenic to immune competent cells
generated thereafter. This hypothesis predicts that in
cancer patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation,
newly produced T cells with specificity for pre-existing
tumor cells will be inactivated by the tumor antigens in
the host. Since the effect of tumor cells on
developing cancer-reactive T cells has not been
investigated, we set out to systematically analyze the
impact of tumor cells in the periphery on the
development of tumor-reactive T cells in the thymus and
their immune competence in the periphery. Our data
demonstrate that in the host in which a tumor is
established in the periphery, the cancer-reactive T
cells develop normally, remain fully immune competent,
become activated in the periphery and cause regression
of large established tumor. The immune competence of T
cells generated in an antigen-bearing host is also
confirmed in a skin graft transplantation model.
