Identification of New HLA-A*2402 Restricted Peptide Expressed in Scirrhous Gastric Cancer

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Scirrhous gastric cancer often develops in lymph nodes and metastasizes to the peritoneum, thus resulting in poor prognosis. Even aggressive surgical procedures and adjuvant chemotherapies have done little to improve the survival rates in patients with scirrhous gastric cancer. Hence, the development of novel therapeutic strategies is urgently required for the treatment of patients with advanced scirrhous gastric cancer. ERas is a recently identified oncogene involved in the tumorgenic growth of embryonic stem (ES) cells. We examined the significance of ERas expression in scirrhous gastric carcinoma, and the possibility of ERas as a tumor-associated antigen of gastric cancer for developing a cancer vaccine. ERas expression was determined in scirrhous gastric carcinoma specimens by immunohistochemical staining. To assess the possibility of the ERas protein as an anti-cancer vaccine target, we examined whether ERas for HLA-A-restricted epitope peptides were capable of eliciting cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) activity. We successfully established CTL clones stimulated by HLA-A*2402-restricted ERas peptides (FALDDPSSL). These peptides have specific cytotoxicity against cancer cells that endogenously express ERas. Our results suggest that ERas is a novel tumor-associated antigen with the potential application to be a vaccine against scirrhous gastric cancer.
日本外科系連合学会の論文