A novel vaccine targeting gastrin-releasing peptide: efficient inhibition of breast cancer growth in vivo.

Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), a bombesin-like peptide, is an autocrine growth factor that can stimulate the growth of various cancer cells. We developed a novel protein vaccine HSP65-(GRP-10)(6) (HG6) that consists of six copies of a 10-amino acid residue epitope of GRP C-terminal fragment carried by mycobacterial 65 kDa HSP65 and then immunized mice via subcutaneous injection. Strong humoral and cell-mediated immune responses were induced. High titer of anti-GRP antibodies was detected in immunized mice sera by ELISA and verified by Western blot analysis. Activity of CD4+T lymphocytes, especially high levels of interferon (INF)-gamma, were developed in mice immunized with HG6 when compared with HSP65 or PBS. We found that immunogene tumor therapy with a vaccine based on GRP was effective at both protective and therapeutic antitumor immunity in breast tumor models in mice. The purified GRP monoclonal antibody (McAb) was proved to be potential in inhibiting EMT-6 tumor cell proliferation in vitro. The attenuation induced by active immune responses on tumor-induced angiogenesis was observed with an intradermal tumor model in mice. Taken together, we demonstrate for the first time that immune responses that are elicited by a novel chimeric protein vaccine targeting GRP can suppress the proliferation of breast tumor cell EMT-6 in mice, and it may be of importance in the further exploration of the applications of other autocrine growth factor identified in human and other animal in cancer therapy.