Developing T-cell based immunotherapy using ubiquitously expressing tumor-associated antigen, Aurora-A kinase and FAK

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Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and Aurora kinase A (Aurora-A) are ubiquitously expressed kinase involved in cancer progression and with poor prognosis that are found overexpressed in various types of cancer. To validate FAK and Aurora-A as a TAA recognized by CD4 helper T lymphocytes (HTL), we have combined the use of predictive peptide/MHC class II binding algorithms with in vitro vaccination of CD4 T lymphocytes from healthy individuals and cancer patients. Synthetic peptides correspond to potential HTL epitopes induced HTL responses that directly recognized FAK/Aurora-A-expressing tumor cells and autologous dendritic cells pulsed with these TAA-expressing tumor cell lysates in an HLA class II-restricted manner. Moreover, since the FAK/Aurora-A peptides were recognized by cancer patient's CD4 T cells, the T helper peptide epitopes might be used for designing T cell-based immunotherapy for FAK/Aurora-A-expressing cancers.