Induction of primary carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes in vitro using human dendritic cells transfected with RNA.

Dendritic cells (DC) generated from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of healthy individuals or from cancer patients transfected with carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) mRNA stimulate a potent CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response in vitro. DCs are effectively sensitized with RNA in the absence of reagents commonly used to facilitate mammalian cell transfection. RNA encoding a chimeric CEA/LAMP-1 lysosomal targeting signal enhances the induction of CEA-specific CD4+ T cells, providing a strategy to induce T-help that may be necessary to generate and/or maintain an optimal CD8+ CTL response in vivo. CEA RNA-transfected DCs also serve as effective targets in cytotoxicity assays, thus providing a general method for inducing, as well as measuring, CEA-specific CTL responses across a broad spectrum of HLA haplotypes.