Oral administration of a soluble 1–3, 1–6 β-glucan during prophylactic survivin peptide vaccination diminishes growth of a B cell lymphoma in mice

β-glucans are biological response modifiers with activatory effects on macrophages, dendritic cells (DC), granulocytes and NK cells. In this study, we investigated the effect of a soluble yeast-derived β-(1–3), (1–6)-d-glucan on prophylactic peptide vaccination against the B cell lymphoma A20 in syngeneic Balb/c mice. We found that repeated immunizations with two MHC class-I restricted peptides derived from the tumor antigen survivin combined with oral co-administration of β-glucan could significantly diminish intradermal tumor growth, whereas peptide vaccination alone failed to control tumor growth. β-glucan as single agent induced only a weak but non-significant growth inhibitory effect. To determine whether the tumor inhibitory effect of the combined treatment was associated with the induction of a tumor-specific immune response we quantified splenic DC and macrophages, analyzed the maturation of DC and measured the frequency of peptide-specific CD8⁺ and CD4⁺ T cells. Treated mice showed significantly increased numbers of splenic macrophages and mature DC compared to untreated tumor-bearing mice. After restimulation with both peptides in vitro elevated levels of interferon (IFN)-γ-secreting CD8⁺ T cells were found in two of four tested mice following treatment and one of four mice showed a strong increase of interleukin (IL)-4-secreting CD4⁺ T cells. Our data reveal a beneficial effect of β-(1–3), (1–6)-d-glucan in tumor growth inhibition by tumor-specific peptide vaccination which may rely on a function of the polymeric sugar as immunological adjuvant.