Fig. 1.

Intranasal vaccination with HPV E6/E7 peptides in combination with α-galactosylceramide (αGalCer) slows the growth of preimplanted HPV⁺ TC-1 tumors. Mice were challenged s.c. with 2 × 10⁵ TC-1 tumor cells and immunized via the intranasal route with either HPV peptides and αGalCer (vaccine), HPV peptides alone, αGalCer alone, or PBS on days 6, 12, 24, and 32 postimplantation (vertical arrows). The survival (A) and tumor growth (B) of the mice were monitored over time. (A) Survival curves of tumor-bearing mice given different therapeutic treatments. Significance in survival proportions was measured using the log-rank test. P < 0.05. (B) The average tumor size is shown as mean area ± SD for each group of mice. Statistical analyses between different groups were performed using Student’s t test between different treatments and the different levels of significance are indicated by * (P ≤ 0.05). (C) Tumor progression of s.c.-implanted TC-1 tumors in mice given the indicated treatment. Each line indicates an individual mouse. Experiments were performed on four to six mice per group.