Antibodies and Vaccines as Novel Cancer Therapeutics

This chapter discusses the basic principles of antitumor antibody and vaccine development with illustrative examples of agents currently in clinical use. The realm of antibody-based cancer immunotherapeutics is divided into two categories, including unmodified monoclonal antibodies with cytotoxic, regulatory, and immunization properties, and immunoconjugates. The most significant developments in antibody-based cancer immunotherapeutics has been the discovery of monoclonal antibodies demonstrating direct anti-tumor cytotoxic properties. Immunotoxins represent the largest component of the immunoconjugate effort. Cancer vaccines represent an attempt to actively immunize patients against single or multiple tumor-specific antigens. The role of immune adjuvants in the cancer vaccine is to enhance the immunogenicity of the antigen. An example of a tumor-specific antigen containing immunodominant peptides capable of stimulating anti-tumor T-cell responses is MAGE-1. The MAGE-1 antigen is encoded by a gene spanning 5 kb, and the 2419 base pair sequence produces a predicted protein product of 26 kDa.