Effective treatment of preexisting melanoma with whole cell vaccines expressing alpha(1,3)-galactosyl epitopes

The hyperacute immune response in humans is a potent mechanism of xenograft rejection mediated by complement-fixing natural antibodies recognizing alpha(1,3)-galactosyl epitopes (alphaGal) not present on human cells. We exploited this immune mechanism to create a whole cell cancer vaccine to treat melanoma tumors. B16 melanoma vaccines genetically engineered to express alphaGal epitopes (B16alphaGal) effectively treated preexisting s.c. and pulmonary alphaGal-negative melanoma (B16Null) tumors in the alpha(1,3)-galactosyltransferase knockout mouse model. T cells from mice vaccinated with B16alphaGal recognized B16Null melanoma cells measured by detection of intracellular tumor necrosis factor-alpha. We showed successful adoptive transfer of immunity to recipient mice bearing lung melanoma metastasis. Mice receiving lymphocytes from donors previously immunized with B16alphaGal had reduced pulmonary metastases. The transfer of lymphocytes from mice vaccinated with control vaccine had no effect in the pulmonary metastasis burden. This study unequivocally establishes for the first time efficacy in the treatment of preexisting melanoma tumors using whole cell vaccines expressing alphaGal epitopes. Vaccination with B16alphagal induced strong long-lasting cell-mediated antitumor immunity extended to B16Null. These data formed the basis for the testing of this therapeutic strategy in human clinical trials currently under way.