Cancer stem cell vaccine in development shows antitumor effect

Scientists may have discovered a new paradigm for immunotherapy against cancer by priming antibodies and T cells with cancer stem cells, according to a study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"This is a major breakthrough in immunotherapy research because we were able to use purified cancer stem cells to generate a vaccine, which strengthened the potency of antibodies and T cells that selectively targeted cancer stem cells," said Qiao Li, Ph.D., a research assistant professor in the department of surgery at the University of Michigan.

Cancer stem cells are tumor cells that remain present, and ultimately resistant, after chemotherapy or radiation treatment. Scientists disagree on whether these cells have unique properties, but those who support the uniqueness idea have argued that these cells regenerate the tumors that lead to relapse.

Despite the similar name, cancer stem cells are distinct from embryonic stem cells, and the two avenues of research are separate.

For the current study, Li and colleagues extracted cancer stem cells from two immunocompetent mouse models and used them to prepare the vaccine.

"We found that these enriched cancer stem cells were immunogenic and far more effective as an antigen source compared with the unselected tumor cells normally used in previous immunotherapy trials," said Li. "The mechanistic investigations found that when antibodies were primed with cancer stem cells, they were capable of targeting cancer stem cells and conferring antitumor immunity."

Stem Cells May Lead to Cancer Vaccine It might be possible to make a cancer vaccine using embryonic stem cells, University of Louisville scientists report.

Their prediction is based on early lab tests on mice. No such vaccine exists for humans yet.

But results from mouse tests suggest the "exciting possibility" that embryonic stem cell vaccines might prevent cancer, write researcher John Eaton, PhD, and colleagues.

Their findings were presented yesterday in Prague, Czech Republic, at a joint symposium of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

"At present, all I can say is that so far it looks good, and that, unless something unexpected happens, this strategy might someday be applied to humans at high risk for development of cancer," Eaton says in an EORTC news release.

Eaton is a professor of medicine and pharmacology/toxicology and the Brown Chair of Cancer Biology at the University of Louisville's medical school.

The researchers also found that cytotoxic T lymphocytes harvested from cancer stem cell-vaccinated hosts were capable of killing cancer stem cells in vitro.