Figure 4. Determinants of neoantigen-targeting ACT model.

(A) Effects of sublethal total-body irradiation and vaccine in treating B16_KVP tumor. C57BL/6 mice were inoculated with 5 × 10⁵ B16_KVP tumor cells 11 days before treatment. One day before ACT, a group of randomly selected mice was irradiated with 5 Gy. On the day of ACT, mice were injected i.v. with PBS (open circles), 1 × 10⁶ pmel-1 T cells (black circles), or 1 × 10⁶ pmel-1 T cells mixed with 2 × 10⁷ PFU of rVVhgp100 (red circles). Three daily doses of 180,000 IU of rhIL-2 was administrated i.p. into all mice. There were 5 mice in each group. Error bars indicate the mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05 by Wilcoxon rank-sum test in comparison of tumor growth curve slopes between PBS- and pmel-1–treated groups. NS, no significant differences by Wilcoxon rank-sum test in comparison of tumor growth curve slopes between pmel-1 and pmel-1 plus vaccination groups. Results represent 1 of 2 independent experiments. (B) Effects of sublethal total-body irradiation and rhIL-2. Tumor injection and irradiation were the same as in A. On the day of ACT, mice were injected i.v. with PBS alone (open circles), 1 × 10⁶ pmel-1 T cells alone (black circles), or pmel-1 T cells plus 3 daily doses of 180,000 rhIL-2 i.p. (red circles). Five mice were included in each group. The results represent 1 of 2 independent experiments. Error bars indicate the mean ± SEM. NS, no significant differences by Wilcoxon rank-sum test in comparison of tumor growth curve slopes between pmel-1 and pmel-1 plus IL-2 groups. *P < 0.05 by Wilcoxon rank-sum test in comparison of tumor growth curve slopes between PBS- and Pmel-1-treated groups.