ANTITUMOR ANTIGEN AGAINST HTLV-I TUMOR OR ITS ANTIGEN EPITOPE

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an immune response induction vaccine or the like having, as an effective component, a CTL recognition antigen, an antigen epitope, or DNA for coding them, acquired by screening the CTL recognition antigens or the antigen epitope having antitumor effect against an HTLV-I tumor such as ATL. SOLUTION: A spleen T cell derived from an immune normal rat immunized by an HTLV-I infected cell line is stimulated by a formalin immobilized HTLV-I infected cell line, to thereby establish an HTLV-I specific CTL cell line, and the cytotoxic activity of the HTLV-I specific CTL cell line against a target cell G14 sensitized by a synthesized peptide which is an epitope candidate is measured, and a main epitope GAFLTNVPY is identified. The immune normal rat is immunized by the epitope synthesized peptide and adjuvant, and a tumor antigen epitope specific CTL is induced, to thereby suppress in vivo multiplication of the HTLV-I infected tumor cell.