Serologische Definition neuer Tumorantigene des Pankreaskarzinoms mittels „Hoch-Dichte Protein Filter“

Abstract

Further methodological developments particularly in the field of the array technology enable new approaches for the identification and characterization of tumour relevant proteins. We used a proteomic-based approach to search for tumour specific target molecules in pancreatic carcinoma tissue and present data on some promising candidates with respect to their tumour biological value. The expression of tumour-associated antigens can provoke an autologous immune response in patients suffering from cancer and thus enables a systematic screening of patient sera to reveal promising proteins. Sera from pancreatic carcinoma patients were incubated with the high-density protein array Library 800 obtained from the Resource Center of the Human Genome Project (RZPD; http://www.rzpd.de). This protein array consists of gridded bacteria clones expressing more than 37 000 different peptide sequences and proteins, which are representing around 10 000 to 12 000 different genes. Overall, 65 bacterial clones were detected positive after incubation with serum (n = 10) from patients with advanced pancreatic carcinoma. The DNA sequencing results showed a collection of uncharacterized, hypothetical or well characterized proteins. The well characterized proteins were for example Pur-1 (myc-associated zinc finger protein), the melanoma-associated antigen F1 (MAGE-F1) and alpha-tubulin.

The protein filter approach is a suitable tool for the serological identification of tumour antigens which was confirmed by candidate matches obtained with autologous serological screening methods published for other cancer types in the SEREX database of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (http://www.licr.org).