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Experimental Infection with Listeria monocytogenes as a Model for Studying Host Interferon-γ Responses
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Cancer immunotherapy using Listeria monocytogenes and listerial virulence factors

Laurence M Wood1, Patrick D Guirnalda, Matthew M Seavey

  • 1Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 323 Johnson Pavilion, 3610 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6076, USA.

Immunologic Research
|November 20, 2008
PubMed

Our laboratory is interested in how immunogenicity may be modulated in vivo in order to better design more effective immunotherapeutics against cancer. Our main approach is to use a facultative intracellular bacterium, Listeria monocytogenes, which has the unusual ability to live and grow in the cytoplasm of the cell and is thus an excellent vector for targeting passenger antigens to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I pathway of antigen processing with the generation of authentic CTL epitopes. We have used this approach to target tumor antigens expressed on breast, melanoma and cervical cancer. We are also exploring the role of Listerial virulence factors in potentiating adaptive immune responses by activating innate immunity. Specifically, we are using these proteins as adjuvants for B cell lymphomas.

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