Division of Hematology and Oncology, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the Southwest Cancer Treatment and Research Center, Lubbock, TX 79430, USA.
J Immunother. 2011 Jul-Aug;34(6):490-9. doi: 10.1097/CJI.0b013e31821ca76f.
Despite recent improvements in standard pharmacologic treatments of multiple myeloma (MM), immunotherapy may prove to be more effective due to its higher specificity and lower toxicity. A novel cancer/testis antigen, ropporin, is a testis-specific protein localized in the sperm flagella. Comparing ropporin expression in healthy and MM samples, we did not detect ropporin expression in the normal tissues, but positive signals were found in 44% of the MM primary samples. The immunogenicity of ropporin was confirmed by the presence of specific antibodies detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in patients' serum. Our results show that ropporin is a novel cancer/testis antigen for MM. Except for in the testis, an immune privileged site, ropporin was not expressed in normal tissues, but was present in MM cell lines and patients' samples. Noteworthy, we show for the first time that ropporin was present at the cell surface of MM plasma cells. We suggest that ropporin is a promising target for MM immunotherapy, as we were able to generate human leukocyte antigen class I-restricted cytotoxic lymphocytes able to kill autologous MM cells.
尽管多发性骨髓瘤（MM）的标准药物治疗最近有所改善，但免疫疗法可能因其更高的特异性和更低的毒性而被证明更有效。一种新型的癌症/睾丸抗原，Ropporin，是一种睾丸特异性蛋白，位于精子鞭毛中。在比较健康和 MM 样本中的 ropporin 表达时，我们在正常组织中未检测到 ropporin 的表达，但在 44%的 MM 原发性样本中发现了阳性信号。通过酶联免疫吸附试验在患者血清中检测到特异性抗体，证实了 ropporin 的免疫原性。我们的研究结果表明，Ropporin 是一种新的 MM 癌症/睾丸抗原。除了在免疫特权部位睾丸中，在正常组织中未表达 ropporin，但在 MM 细胞系和患者样本中存在。值得注意的是，我们首次表明 ropporin 存在于 MM 浆细胞的细胞表面。我们认为 ropporin 是 MM 免疫治疗的一个很有前途的靶点，因为我们能够产生能够杀伤自体 MM 细胞的人类白细胞抗原 I 类限制性细胞毒性淋巴细胞。
