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. 1986 Nov 1;164(5):1547–1565. doi: 10.1084/jem.164.5.1547

Highly malignant tumor variants retain tumor-specific antigens recognized by T helper cells

PMCID: PMC2188458  PMID: 2945891

Abstract

We have studied the components of a complex of tumor-specific antigens to determine if all of the components of the complex were lost during progression from a rather benign regressor tumor to a highly malignant (HM) cancer. We find that the HM tumor cells have lost antigens recognized by CTL but retained antigens recognized by Th cells. Immunization with variants expressing Th-defined antigens induced tumor- specific immunity to challenge with a parental variant that expressed a CTL-recognized target antigen, but did not induce immunity to challenge with the variant that expressed the Th-defined antigen alone. Together, these findings suggested that Th cells fail to exert direct selective pressure upon the tumor, resulting in retention of "lineage-specific," Th-recognized antigens by highly immunoselected variants. Possible advantage could be taken of this fact for the development of specific immunotherapy.

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Selected References

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