Molecular basis of T cell-mediated recognition of pancreatic cancer cells

Pancreatic cancer continues to be a major unsolved health problem in the wo rld. The prognosis of pancreatic canter is extremely poor with a median sur vival of 3-4 months and the 5-year survival being 1-4%. This poor prognosis is primarily because of a lack of effective therapies, and thus developmen t of new treatment modalities is needed. One of these treatments could invo lve specific immunotherapy, for which elucidation of the molecular basis of T cell-mediated recognition of cancer cells is required. We report here si x different genes and 19 immunogenic epitopes from pancreatic adenocarcinom a tells and T-cell receptor beta usage of HLA-A2-restricted CTL clones reac ting to some of these epitopes. Sixteen of 19 epitopes Here found to posses s the ability to induce HLA-A2-restricted CTL activity in the peripheral bl ood lymphocytes of patients with pancreatic and also colon adenocarcinomas. These results should provide a scientific basis for the development of spe cific immunotherapy for pancreatic and colon cancer patients.