Healthy individuals have T-cell and antibody responses to the tumor antigen cyclin B1 that when elicited in mice protect from cancer.

We previously identified the aberrantly expressed cell cycle regulator cyclin B1 as a tumor antigen recognized by antibodies and T cells from patients with breast, lung, and head and neck cancers. Ordinarily expressed only transiently in the G2/M stage of the cell cycle in normal cells, cyclin B1 is constitutively expressed at high levels in the cytoplasm of these and many other tumor types, leading to its recognition by the cancer patient's immune system. We report here an unexpected observation that cyclin B1-specific antibody and memory CD4 and CD8 T cells are also found in many healthy individuals who have no history of cancer. Moreover, young as well as older healthy people have these responses suggesting that events other than cancer, which occur either early in life or throughout life, may lead to aberrant cyclin B1 expression and anti-cyclin B1 immunity. The role, if any, of immunity to this tumor-associated antigen is not known. We wanted to determine specifically whether immunity to cyclin B1 might be important in the immunosurveillance of cyclin B1+ tumors. We therefore tested in mice the effectiveness of vaccine-elicited anti-cyclin B1 immunity against a cyclin B1+ mouse tumor that was chosen based on our published observation that cyclin B1 overexpression is associated with the lack of p53 function. We found that cyclin B1 DNA prime-protein boost vaccine protected mice from a challenge with a tumor cell line that was established from a tumor arising in the p53(-/-) mouse that spontaneously overexpresses cyclin B1.