Presence on a human melanoma of multiple antigens recognized by autologous CTL.
Van den Eynde B., Hainaut P., Hérin M., Knuth A., Lemoine C., Weynants P., van der Bruggen P., Fauchet R., Boon T.
We derived from blood lymphocytes of a melanoma patient a large number of cytolytic T-cell clones directed against a cell line of the autologous tumor. Three distinct groups of antigens were recognized by these CTL on the autologous melanoma cells: group A consisted of stable antigens present on all sublines, whereas antigens B and C appeared unstable and were expressed by distinct sublines. In vitro immunoselections with various anti-A CTL clones were applied to the melanoma cells and variants resistant to 3 different CTL clones were obtained. These variants remained sensitive to other anti-A CTL clones, indicating that group A comprises at least 4 different antigens (D, E, F and A'). From a total of 76 CTL clones obtained from lymphocytes collected from the patient at various times, we found that 45 were anti-B, 17 were anti-C, 2 were anti-D, 9 were anti-E, 2 were anti-F and I was anti-A'. It is therefore likely that the 6 antigens identified by these CTL clones represent all or nearly all the transplantation antigens recognized by autologous CTL on this human melanoma.