Abstract
Transfecting with in vitro transcribed, protein-encoding mRNA is a simple yet effective method to express high levels of the desired RNA-encoded proteins in primary cells. Cells can be transfected with antigen-encoding mRNA, which is translated into protein and is processed by the cellular antigen-processing pathway to generate antigen-presenting cells. Another elegant and increasingly popular application is to transfect cells with mRNA that encodes immune modulating molecules (cytokines, chemokines, toll-like receptors (TLRs), immune receptor ligands, immune receptor targeting antibodies) which, when translated into protein, can program cell behavior and/or function. In this chapter we describe an efficient method to deliver mRNA into human dendritic cells (DCs) by electroporation. This is currently the method of choice to deliver mRNA into antigen-presenting cells for generating vaccines for cancer immunotherapy.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Zhou LJ, Tedder TF (1996) CD14+ blood monocytes can differentiate into functionally mature CD83+ dendritic cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 93:2588–2592
Steinman RM (1991) The dendritic cell system and its role in immunogenicity. Annu Rev Immunol 9:271–296
Nair S, Boczkowski D, Pruitt S, Urban J (2011) RNA in cancer vaccine therapy. In: Bot A, Obrocea M, Marincola F (eds) Cancer vaccines: from research to clinical practice pp 217–231
Bringmann A, Held SA, Heine A, Brossart P (2010) RNA vaccines in cancer treatment. J Biomed Biotechnol 2010(623687):1–12
Gilboa E, Vieweg J (2004) Cancer immunotherapy with mRNA-transfected dendritic cells. Immunol Rev 199:251–263
Boczkowski D, Lee J, Pruitt S, Nair S (2009) Dendritic cells engineered to secrete anti-GITR antibodies are effective adjuvants to dendritic cell-based immunotherapy. Cancer Gene Ther 16(12):900–911
Boczkowski D, Nair S (2010) RNA as performance-enhancers for dendritic cells. Expert Opin Biol Ther 10:563–574
Bonehill A, Van Nuffel AM, Corthals J, Tuyaerts S, Heirman C, Francois V, Colau D, van der Bruggen P, Neyns B, Thielemans K (2009) Single-step antigen loading and activation of dendritic cells by mRNA electroporation for the purpose of therapeutic vaccination in melanoma patients. Clin Cancer Res 15:3366–3375
Bontkes HJ, Kramer D, Ruizendaal JJ, Meijer CJ, Hooijberg E (2008) Tumor associated antigen and interleukin-12 mRNA transfected dendritic cells enhance effector function of natural killer cells and antigen specific T-cells. Clin Immunol 127:375–384
Cisco RM, Abdel-Wahab Z, Dannull J, Nair S, Tyler DS, Gilboa E, Vieweg J, Daaka Y, Pruitt SK (2004) Induction of human dendritic cell maturation using transfection with RNA encoding a dominant positive toll-like receptor 4. J Immunol 172:7162–7168
Dannull J, Lesher DT, Holzknecht R, Qi W, Hanna G, Seigler H, Tyler DS, Pruitt SK (2007) Immunoproteasome down-modulation enhances the ability of dendritic cells to stimulate antitumor immunity. Blood 110:4341–4350
Dannull J, Nair S, Su Z, Boczkowski D, DeBeck C, Yang B, Gilboa E, Vieweg J (2005) Enhancing the immunostimulatory function of dendritic cells by transfection with mRNA encoding OX40 ligand. Blood 105:3206–3213
Lee J, Dollins CM, Boczkowski D, Sullenger BA, Nair S (2008) Activated B cells modified by electroporation of multiple mRNAs encoding immune stimulatory molecules are comparable to mature dendritic cells in inducing in vitro antigen-specific T-cell responses. Immunology 125:229–240
Pruitt SK, Boczkowski D, de Rosa N, Haley NR, Morse MA, Tyler DS, Dannull J, Nair S (2011) Enhancement of anti-tumor immunity through local modulation of CTLA-4 and GITR by dendritic cells. Eur J Immunol 41(12):3553–3563
Tcherepanova IY, Adams MD, Feng X, Hinohara A, Horvatinovich J, Calderhead D, Healey D, Nicolette CA (2008) Ectopic expression of a truncated CD40L protein from synthetic post-transcriptionally capped RNA in dendritic cells induces high levels of IL-12 secretion. BMC Mol Biol 9:90
Zhao Y, Boczkowski D, Nair SK, Gilboa E (2003) Inhibition of invariant chain expression in dendritic cells presenting endogenous antigens stimulates CD4+ T-cell responses and tumor immunity. Blood 102:4137–4142
Van Tendeloo VF, Ponsaerts P, Lardon F, Nijs G, Lenjou M, Van Broeckhoven C, Van Bockstaele DR, Berneman ZN (2001) Highly efficient gene delivery by mRNA electroporation in human hematopoietic cells: superiority to lipofection and passive pulsing of mRNA and to electroporation of plasmid cDNA for tumor antigen loading of dendritic cells. Blood 98:49–56
Boczkowski D, Nair SK, Nam JH, Lyerly HK, Gilboa E (2000) Induction of tumor immunity and cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses using dendritic cells transfected with messenger RNA amplified from tumor cells. Cancer Res 60:1028–1034
Boczkowski D, Nair SK, Snyder D, Gilboa E (1996) Dendritic cells pulsed with RNA are potent antigen-presenting cells in vitro and in vivo. J Exp Med 184:465–472
Nair S, Boczkowski D, Moeller B, Dewhirst M, Vieweg J, Gilboa E (2003) Synergy between tumor immunotherapy and antiangiogenic therapy. Blood 102:964–971
Nair SK, Boczkowski D, Morse M, Cumming RI, Lyerly HK, Gilboa E (1998) Induction of primary carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in vitro using human dendritic cells transfected with RNA. Nat Biotechnol 16:364–369
Nair SK, Heiser A, Boczkowski D, Majumdar A, Naoe M, Lebkowski JS, Vieweg J, Gilboa E (2000) Induction of cytotoxic T cell responses and tumor immunity against unrelated tumors using telomerase reverse transcriptase RNA transfected dendritic cells. Nat Med 6:1011–1017
Stepinski J, Waddell C, Stolarski R, Darzynkiewicz E, Rhoads RE (2001) Synthesis and properties of mRNAs containing the novel “anti-reverse” cap analogs 7-methyl(3′-O-methyl)GpppG and 7-methyl (3′-deoxy)GpppG. RNA 7:1486–1495
Sambrook J, Fritsch EF, Maniatis T (1989) Molecular cloning: a laboratory manual, vol 1–3, 2nd edn. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, pp 7.43–7.45
Strobel I, Berchtold S, Gotze A, Schulze U, Schuler G, Steinkasserer A (2000) Human dendritic cells transfected with either RNA or DNA encoding influenza matrix protein M1 differ in their ability to stimulate cytotoxic T lymphocytes. Gene Ther 7:2028–2035
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Lee, J., Boczkowski, D., Nair, S. (2013). Programming Human Dendritic Cells with mRNA. In: Rabinovich, P. (eds) Synthetic Messenger RNA and Cell Metabolism Modulation. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 969. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-260-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-260-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ
Print ISBN: 978-1-62703-259-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-62703-260-5
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols