. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Apr 1.

Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2013 Jul 16;10(10):607–620. doi: 10.1038/nrgastro.2013.120

Table 3.

Mucins as potential target(s) for pancreatic cancer therapy

Targeted antigen	Therapeutic regimen	Immune response	Comment	Study
MUC1 vaccine (105 amino acid conserved tandem repeat domain)	VNTR peptide with BCG adjuvant (phase I/II); SB-AS2 adjuvant (phase I); and incomplete Freund’s adjuvant (phase I)	Both cellular and humoral immune response	Suppressed immune system Few studies with a limited number of patients	105–107
MUC1-pulsed dendritic cells	Adoptive transfer of dendritic cells transfected with MUC1 cDNA (phase II); MUC1 peptide (phase I/II)	Vaccine well tolerated; MUC1-reactive CTL response	No increase in anti-MUC1 antibody levels with high, nonspecific T-cell activation	141,142
MUC1-pulsed dendritic cells or CTLs	MUC1-peptide-pulsed dendritic cells in combination with activated CTLs (phase II)	Low tumour:healthy tissue ratio and high liver accumulation	Well tolerated with mean survival of 9.8 months and stable disease in five patients	111
PAM4 antibody targeted radiotherapy	¹³¹I-PAM4 mAb ^99mTc-PAM4 mAb ⁹⁰Y-PAM4 mAb and its humanized PAM4 (clivatuzumab tetraxetan)	Efficient targeting of tumour with no secondary reaction toward the formulation	In case of clivatuzumab tetraxetan, 12 of 21 patients with pancreatic cancer were targeted; 3 patients had a partial response¹⁴⁴	143–146
Inhibitors of oligomerization (GO-201)	Small molecule drugs inhibiting MUC1-CT oligomerization by binding to CQC motif blocks MUC1 functioning	Regressed growth of xenograft tumours	Promising drug candidate	116,147

Abbreviations: BCG, Bacillus Calmette–Guérin; CT, cytoplasmic tail; CTL, cytotoxic T lymphocyte; mAb, monoclonal antibody; PanIN, pancreatic intra-epithelial neoplasia; VNTR, variable number of tandem repeats.