Gene Therapy of Human Melanoma — from Animal Experiments to the Clinical Trial

Low immunogenecity of tumour cells is one of the reason that specific immune response is insufficient to destroy malignant cells. In an attempt to augment weakly immunogenic B78H1 mouse melanoma cell line, these cells were transfected with genomic DNA from a line of human melanoma cells expressing a 96kD melanoma associated antigen (MAA) that is intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM 1). The transfected cells expressed fivefold higher quantities of the melanoma associated antigen from which the DNA was obtained. Human ICAM 1 expressed by mouse melanoma cells appeared to be highly immunogenic leading to the rejection of the modified mouse melanoma cells. The transfected cells appeared to be…