Efficient induction of specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes against gastric adenocarcinoma by a survivin peptide

Survivin has been demonstrated to be an excellent target for immunotherapy in several types of cancer, but little is known of the efficacy of survivin with gastric adenocarcinoma. In this study, a simple method was performed, and relatively high efficacy was shown upon inducing survivin-derived peptide-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of healthy donors. The induced CTLs exhibited specific lysis against HLA-A2 matched tumor cells in vitro, and similar results were demonstrated in primary cell cultures isolated from patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. Up to 30% of randomly selected patients could potentially benefit from immunotherapy targeting survivin. These results suggested that this survivin epitope peptide could be a promising vaccine candidate for immunotherapy for patients with gastric adenocarcinoma.