Lipopeptide‐based melanoma cancer vaccine induced a strong MART‐27‐35‐cytotoxic T lymphocyte response in a preclinal study

Identification of tumor antigens and their optimal antigenic peptides raised hopes for the development of peptide‐based immunotherapeutic vaccine strategies for human melanoma, however. Synthetic peptides alone are not immunogenic enough, and adequate formulation is critical for elaboration of peptide vaccines. To improve formulation, we evaluated 2 lipopeptide constructs, both including HLA‐A2‐restricted MART 27‐35‐CD8+ T lymphocyte (CTL) epitope covalently linked to universal tetanus toxoid (TT) 830‐843 helper T lymphocyte (HTL) epitope, in HLA‐A2 transgenic mouse models that mimic human CTL responses in vivo. These 2 constructs only differed in the formulation of their lipid tail. We showed that lipopeptide constructs were strongly recognized, in vitro, by human MART 27‐35 cytotoxic T cells derived from tumor‐infiltrating lymphocytes. The transgenic Mice immunized with these 2 MART lipopeptide formulations containing covalently linked HTL‐CTL epitopes induced strong MART 27‐35 cytotoxic T cells. This CTL induction was critically dependant on the presence of the helper T lymphocyte epitope. These results also showed that a single palmitoyl‐lysine chain is enough to assure immunogenicity of a given peptide and that the presence of a lipid tail bypass the need for adjuvant. These results support the selection of MART‐lipopeptide melanoma vaccine for evaluation in a clinical trial. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.