Figure 2.

Vaccination with VEL-based immunogens delays and inhibits breast tumor growth. (A) BALB/c mice (5-7 in each group) were immunized i.v. with FSVL, FSWT and non-related FB22 phage or left untreated, as described in Methods. After 40 days, all animals were inoculated with 4T1 tumor cells and the tumor growth was monitored by measuring tumor size till day 37. Growth rates of tumors are shown. In therapeutic study, mice were immunized with phage immunogens on day 5 after tumor inoculation by single i.v. injection and the tumors were measured till day 31 (B), or the mice were primed by s.c. immunization with PSVL, PG5D peptide libraries, poly (I:C) adjuvant alone or PSWT peptide on day 5 after tumor challenge (D). In separate studies, mice primed on day 5 after tumor challenge received 3 booster immunizations either with corresponding phage immunogen (C) or with synthetic peptide (E) on days 11, 17 and 23 post-tumor challenge. The data represent the average of at least 2 experiments, all error bars show ± s.e.m., ** indicates significance (P < 0.05), *indicates significance (P < 0.1).