Immunotherapy of tumors with xenogeneic endothelial cells as a vaccine

The breaking of immune tolerance against autologous angiogenic endothelial cells should be a useful approach for cancer therapy. Here we show that imm unotherapy of tumors using fixed xenogeneic whole endothelial cells as a va ccine was effective in affording protection from tumor growth, inducing reg ression of established tumors and prolonging survival of tumor-bearing mice . Furthermore, autoreactive immunity targeting to microvessels in solid tum ors was induced and was probably responsible for the anti-tumor activity. T hese observations may provide a new vaccine strategy for cancer therapy thr ough the induction of an autoimmune response against the tumor endothelium in a cross-reaction.