Induction of tumor-specific in vivo protective immunity by immunization with tumor antigen-pulsed antigen-presenting cells.

The present study investigates the role of APC in inducing tumor-specific in vivo protective immunity. Thy-1+ cell-depleted, Mac-1+ cell-enriched fraction of normal BALB/c spleen cells were used as a source of APC. These APC were cultured in vitro with the membrane fraction isolated from CSA1M fibrosarcoma derived from BALB/c strain. The administration of such APC into naive BALB/c mice generated the capacity of these animals to reject the subsequently challenged viable CSA1M tumor cells. Although the induction of anti-CSA1M in vivo protective immunity required three consecutive immunizations with more than 10(5) APC which had been pulsed in vitro with 200 to 300 micrograms protein of CSA1M membrane fraction, the immunity was induced irrespective of whether APC were administered via s.c., i.v., or i.p. route. This immunity was tumor-specific, inasmuch as the inoculation of CSA1M or Meth A fibrosarcoma membrane component-pulsed APC resulted in the selective immunity against the challenge with homologous types of tumor cells. The CSA1M-specific in vivo protective immunity was also induced by injecting APC pulsed with solubilized CSA1M membrane components. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the efficiency for inducing anti-CSA1M immunity was much higher in the utilization of tumor Ag-pulsed APC than in the immunization with tumor Ag emulsified in CFA. These results indicate the critical role of APC in generating tumor rejection immunity in vivo and this model presents a novel approach to induce tumor-specific immunity without using tumor cells themselves.