2008-7-22 11:04:58

PNAS：开发出以植物为主的癌症疫苗

佚名

美国研究人员开发出一种以植物为主的癌症疫苗，它能启动人体的免疫系统，并且可以被调整，以对抗不同种类的癌肿瘤。

“没有副作用”

据《联合早报》报道，斯坦福大学医学中心的利维说：“这是在没有副作用的情况下治疗癌症的一个途径。”他说：“整个概念是要启动人体自身的防疫系统来对抗癌症。我们知道，防疫系统启动后，它就能攻击和杀死癌细胞。”

斯坦福研究人员已成功在老鼠身上试验了疫苗，他们也在16个患有滤泡B细胞淋巴瘤的病人身上测试了疫苗。斯坦福研究人员的这项研究成果刊登在，美国《国家科学院院刊》（PNAS），他们的研究显示，没有一个病人出现任何明显的副作用，而超过70%的病人出现了免疫反应。

以植物为主疫苗好处多

这是科研人员首次在人身上试验植物性质的癌症疫苗。以植物为主的疫苗有很多好处，包括可以在花费较少的情况下更快制成、不会有动物细胞污染以致感染人类的危险，以及所制造的抗体能激发更强烈的免疫反应。

尽管研究人员还不确定所启动的免疫系统是否足以消灭癌细胞，但他们希望这项科技将来或许能有效对付某些类型的癌症。（生物谷Bioon.com）

生物谷推荐原始出处：

PNAS，doi: 10.1073/pnas.0803636105，A. A. McCormick, R. Levy

Plant-produced idiotype vaccines for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: Safety and immunogenicity in a phase I clinical study

A. A. McCormick*,^†, S. Reddy^‡, S. J. Reinl*, T. I. Cameron*, D. K. Czerwinkski^‡, F. Vojdani*, K. M. Hanley*,^§, S. J. Garger*,^¶, E. L. White*,^‖, J. Novak^§, J. Barrett**, R. B. Holtz*,^††, D. Tusé*, and R. Levy^‡,^‡‡

+Author Affiliations

*Large Scale Biology Corporation, 3333 Vaca Valley Parkway, Vacaville, CA 95688;
^†Touro College of Pharmacy, Touro University, 110 Johnson Lane, Mare Island, Vallejo, CA 94592;
^‡Division of Oncology, Department of Medicine, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA 94305-5151;
^§CBR International Corporation 2905 Wilderness Place, Suite 202, Boulder, CO 80301;
^¶Bayer HealthCare, 800 Dwight Way, Berkeley, CA 94701;
^‖Integrated Biomolecule Corporation, 2005 Innovation Park Drive, Tucson, AZ 85755;
**Biologics Consulting Group, Inc., P.O. Box 3025, Evergreen, CO 80437; and
^††Holtz Biopharma Consulting, 3930 Accent Drive, #1911, Dallas, TX 75287

Communicated by Charles J. Arntzen, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, May 2, 2008 (received for review December 10, 2007)

Abstract

Plant-made vaccines have been the subject of intense interest because they can be produced economically in large scale without the use of animal-derived components. Plant-made therapeutic vaccines against challenging chronic diseases, such as cancer, have received little research attention, and no previous human clinical trials have been conducted in this vaccine category. We document the feasibility of using a plant viral expression system to produce personalized (patient-specific) recombinant idiotype vaccines against follicular B cell lymphoma and the results of administering these vaccines to lymphoma patients in a phase I safety and immunogenicity clinical trial. The system allowed rapid production and recovery of idiotypic single-chain antibodies (scFv) derived from each patient's tumor and immunization of patients with their own individual therapeutic antigen. Both low and high doses of vaccines, administered alone or co-administered with the adjuvant GM-CSF, were well tolerated with no serious adverse events. A majority (>70%) of the patients developed cellular or humoral immune responses, and 47% of the patients developed antigen-specific responses. Because 15 of 16 vaccines were glycosylated in plants, this study also shows that variation in patterns of antigen glycosylation do not impair the immunogenicity or affect the safety of the vaccines. Collectively, these findings support the conclusion that plant-produced idiotype vaccines are feasible to produce, safe to administer, and a viable option for idiotype-specific immune therapy in follicular lymphoma patients.