Synthetic MUC1 Antitumor Vaccine with Incorporated 2,3‐Sialyl‐T Carbohydrate Antigen Inducing Strong Immune Responses with Isotype Specificity

The endothelial glycoprotein MUC1 is known to underlie alterations in cancer by means of aberrant glycosylation accompanied by changes in morphology. The heavily shortened glycans induce a collapse of the peptide backbone and enable accessibility of the latter to immune cells, rendering it a tumor‐associated antigen. Synthetic vaccines based on MUC1 tandem repeat motifs, comprising tumor‐associated 2,3‐sialyl‐T antigen, conjugated to the immunostimulating tetanus toxoid, are reported herein. Immunization with these vaccines in a simple water/oil emulsion produced a strong immune response in mice to which stimulation with complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) was not superior. In both cases, high levels of IgG1 and IgG2a/b were induced in C57BL/6 mice. Additional glycosylation in the immunodominant PDTRP domain led to improved binding of the induced antisera to MCF‐7 breast tumor cells, compared with that of the monoglycosylated peptide vaccine. On target: Synthetic antitumor vaccines based on human tumor‐associated MUC1 glycopeptides incorporating 2,3‐sialyl T antigen and Tn antigen induce a strong immune response in BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice with antibody subtype selectivity. The results suggest that glycosylation in the PDTRP domain positively effects the immunological response.