Murine neuroblastoma vaccines produced by retroviral transfer of MHC class II genes

Malignant tumors express tumor-related antigens, but effective antitumor immunity does not occur in the primary host. One hypothesis is that there is insufficient stimulation of T-cell responses due to ineffective antigen presentation. An approach to overcome these deficiencies is to modify tumor cells to express major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II genes and thus facilitate the presentation of antigens directly by tumor cells. Our experiments with a murine neuroblastoma cell line (neuro-2a) transduced with DR (xenogeneic), 1-Ab (allogeneic), or 1-Ak (syngeneic) MHC class II genes support this notion. The relative potencies of the modified neuro-2a to induce immunity to unmodified neuro-2a were neuro-2a/DR > neuro-2a/1-Ab > neuro-2a/1-Ak. Modified neuro-2a also could stimulate naive splenocyte proliferation in vitro. The relative magnitude of the proliferative responses seen after stimulation with modified tumor cells was neuro-2a/DR > neuro-2a/1-Ab > neuro-2a/1-Ak > unmodified neuro-2a. Hence, the tumor cell-induced splenocyte proliferative responses observed in vitro correlate with the effectiveness of the tumor cell vaccines to induce antitumor immunity in vivo. These data show that the expression of exogenous MHC class II on tumor cells is a potent stimulus for specific antitumor immunity. Because of the correlation of the in vivo and in vitro immune responses to modified tumor cells, the tumor-induced lymphocyte proliferation assay may be useful in evaluating tumor cell vaccines produced by additional genetic modifications of tumor cells.