Table 1.

Reactivity of melanoma patient-derived antibodies against a melanoma cell line and primary melanocytes

IL-17+BAFF+CpG B cell cultures
Patient	Sex	Age	Stage	Cell type
				Melanoma cells (A375)		Melanocytes
				Mean fold increase above Negative control (95%CI)	Number of reactive cultures (total wells)	Mean fold increase above Negative control (95%CI)	Number of reactive cultures (total wells)
187	Male	64	IV	1.7 (1.5–2.2)	21 (600)	0.4 (0.3–0.5)	0 (600)
167	Male	80	IV	2.0 (1.9–2.1)	29 (600)	0.8 (0.8–0.9)	0 (600)
139	Female	55	IIIC	1.6 (1.3–1.9)	1 (600)	0.5 (0.4–0.6)	0 (600)
% Tumour-reactive cultures					2.8		0
CpG B cell-cultures
Patient	Sex	Age	Stage	Cell type
				Melanoma cells (A375)		Melanocytes
				Mean fold increase above Negative control (95%CI)	Number of reactive cultures (total wells)	Mean fold increase above Negative control (95%CI)	Number of reactive cultures (total wells)
187	Male	64	IV	1.1 (0.7–1.5)	12 (600)	0.7 (0.6–1.3)	0 (600)
167	Male	80	IV	1.5 (1.4–1.6)	15 (600)	0.9 (0.8–1.1)	0 (600)
139	Female	55	IIIC	1.4 (1.2–1.9)	0 (600)	0.9 (0.9–1.0)	0 (600)
% Tumour-reactive cultures					1.5		0

Summary of B-cell culture supernatants from three melanoma patients screened for reactive antibodies against the human melanoma cell line A375 or against primary human melanocytes. Supernatants for screening of antibodies reactive to human cells in the cell-based ELISA were harvested after 10 days from B cells cultured with IL-17+BAFF+CpG or CpG alone. Mean fold increase above the Negative control wells (95%CI) were calculated by dividing the optical density of the sample by the optical density of the Negative control (non-specific human IgG). Culture supernatants were considered tumour cell-reactive if absorbance values were > 75% those measured with the Positive control (trastuzumab IgG, recognizing HER2/neu) against the same target cells.