查看文章

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen‐presenting cells (APCs) that can be used for vaccination purposes, to induce a specific T‐cell response in vivo against melanoma‐associated antigens. We have shown that the sequential use of early‐acting hematopoietic growth factors, stem cell factor, IL‐3 and IL‐6, followed by differentiation with IL‐4 and granulocyte‐macrophage colony‐stimulating factor allows the in vitro generation of large numbers of immature DCs from CD34⁺ peripheral blood progenitor cells. Maturation to interdigitating DCs could specifically be induced within 24 hr by addition of TNF‐α. Here, we report on a phase I clinical vaccination trial in melanoma patients using peptide‐pulsed DCs. Fourteen HLA‐A1⁺ or HLA‐A2⁺ patients received at least 4 i.v. infusions of 5 × 10⁶ to 5 × 10⁷ DCs pulsed with a pool of peptides including either MAGE‐1, MAGE‐3 (HLA‐A1) or Melan‐A, gp100 …