Antitumor immunotherapeutic effect of immunization with fusion of dendritic cells and hepatocellular carcinoma cells in mice

由于肿瘤复发率高，肝细胞癌治疗后的远期预后仍然较差。癌症的免疫疗法很有吸引力。目的：探讨树突状细胞(DC)与肝癌细胞融合免疫对小鼠肝癌移植瘤的抗肿瘤作用。为了研究融合蛋白的抗肿瘤免疫效果，将融合蛋白皮下注射到小鼠体内。用乳酸脱氢酶(LDH)法测定CTL活性。观察小鼠的存活情况和肿瘤大小。融合的小鼠免疫诱导了对肿瘤攻击的保护性免疫。肿瘤抗原致敏的树突状细胞有效地抑制了小鼠肝癌的生长。经融合治疗后，肿瘤体积缩小，荷瘤小鼠存活时间延长。本研究表明，DC与肿瘤细胞的融合细胞能诱导有效的抗肿瘤免疫反应，可用于肝癌的治疗和预防肝癌复发。

The long-term prognosis after treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains poor because of high rate of tumor recurrence. Immunotherapy for cancer is attractive. Uncharacterized and mutated antigens can be targeted with whole tumor cell or tumor lysate-based immunization strategies.Our study was to investigate the antitumor effects of immunization with fusions of dendritic cells (DCs) and HCC cells against HCC tumors transplanted to mice.Fusion cells of DCs and tumor cells were prepaired with polyethylene glycol. To study the antitumor immune effects, fusions were subcutaneously injected into mice. The CTL activity was assumed by the LDH method. Mice were followed for survival and tumor size.Immunization of mice with fusions induced protective immunity against tumor challenge. Tumor antigen-pulsed DCs effectively suppressed the growth of HCC in mice. After treatment with fusions, tumor size decreased and the survival time of tumor-bearing mice was extended.Our study demonstrated that the fusion cells of DCs and tumor cells could induce effective antitumor immune responses and may be used in HCC treatment and prevention of recurrence of HCC.