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Query: UMLS:C0025202 (melanoma)
 69,561 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

During studies that showed the presence of fetal antigens on the surface of human malignant melanoma tumor cells, polyvalent antisera specific for human fetal tissues of varying ages were developed. These reagents demonstrated varying patterns of expression of fetal antigens at different ages in various tissues of the human fetus. The possibility that nonneoplastic adult cells showing either maturation arrest or excessive proliferation also might express fetal antigens led to studies of human bone marrow. Although normal bone marrow cells expressed low levels of fetal antigens, large amounts were seen on bone marrow cells of patients with anemias due to iron, B12, or folic acid deficiencies, as well as on those with leukemia. Moreover, normal adult tissues adapted to long-term culture also expressed fetal antigens. After 3 weeks in organ culture adult human skin showed morphological changes similar to those seen in fetal periderm and strongly expressed fetal antigens. In addition, lymphoblasts in long-term cultured human lymphoid cell lines established from normal donors also carried surface fetal antigens. These latter antigens were shared with neoplastic B-cells (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) but not with T-cells. Their expression varied with the cell cycle. The reexpression of fetal antigens on malignant cells is thought to signal a basic derangement in the control of differentiation which is considered to be peculiar to neoplasia. However, these studies indicate that normal adult cells also may reexpress fetal antigens under circumstances unrelated to neoplasia but associated with either maturation arrest or rapid and excessive proliferation.
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PMID:Fetal antigens in nonneoplastic conditions. 108 33

Lymphoid cell subpopulations from normal donors and patients with malignant melanoma were assessed for cytotoxicity. Unfractionated mononuclear cells and T-cells from melanoma patients gave cell-mediated cytotoxic (CMC) responses to melanoma target cells but not to human fibroblasts. These specific CMC responses to melanoma cells were partially inhibited by autologous serum. Non-T-cells and nonrosetting cells from melanoma patients were not directly cytolytic for melanoma target cells; however these same subpopulations were cytotoxic in the presence of autologous serum, which indicated antibody-dependent cell cytotoxic responses. Non-T-cell subpopulations from normal donors were not cytotoxic when incubated with autologous serum. A third cytotoxic mechanism was demonstrated with complement (C3) receptor-activated lymphocytes. From both melanoma patients and normal donors, cells forming rosettes with erythrocyte-antibody-complement were nonspecifically cytotoxic for lung fibroblasts and melanoma target cells, These responses were independent of antibody, since melanoma serum presumably containing antibody to melanoma target cells neither enhanced nor blocked cytotoxicity mediated by C3 receptor-bearing lymphocytes. The results indicated that lymphoid cell subpopulations from the same melanoma patient could express at least three different lymphocyte-mediated cytotoxicity mechanisms against melanoma target cells.
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PMID:Cytotoxicity responses to melanoma cells by human lymphoid cell subpopulations. 108 48

The immunogenicity of the antigen molecule is a prerequisite for active specific immunotherapy for melanoma. Since most of the melanoma-associated antigens recognized by the murine immune system are known to be not immunogenic in man, a detection and analysis system for melanoma-associated antigens is required to reflect in vivo immune responses in patients with melanoma. One of the promising approaches, an attempt to develop human monoclonal antibodies from B lymphocytes of patients with melanoma, has met with limited success due to the difficulties of producing large amounts of antibodies and using them in immunochemical assays, because most of them belong to the IgM class and have low affinity. Our approach is to utilize the screening of a cDNA expression library constructed from mRNA extracted from cultured melanoma cells with antibodies from patients with melanoma. The cloned cDNA, designated as D-1, had 1029 bp and showed no significant homology with viral and mammalian sequences stored in GENETYX. cDNA D-1 hybridized to a 2.0 kb mRNA species from 3 different cell lines of human melanoma, neuroblastoma, erythroleukemia, B lymphoid, and T lymphoid cells, but not from a renal carcinoma cell line, normal peripheral lymphocytes, or normal fibroblasts. The in vivo expression and distribution of mRNA related to cDNA D-1 has been examined in tissue specimens by in situ hybridization and shown to be rather restricted on melanoma cells. The polypeptide antigen encoded by cDNA D-1 may be a valuable immunogen for implementing active specific immunotherapy in patients with melanoma.
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PMID:Melanoma-associated antigen synthesized in vitro for active specific immunotherapy. 129 70

Recently we reported that human dermal fibroblasts, or conditioned media obtained from such cells, affect the growth of human melanoma cells as a direct function of tumor progression: melanoma cells obtained from early-stage (metastatically incompetent) primary lesions were growth inhibited, whereas cells obtained from more advanced (metastatically competent) primary lesions, or metastases, were growth stimulated. Ion-exchange and gel-filtration chromatography of fibroblast conditioned medium revealed the inhibitor to be a protein of molecular mass between 20 and 30 kDa and distinct from the stimulator. This is the approximate molecular mass of interleukin 6 (IL-6), a ubiquitous multifunctional cytokine known to affect in particular many kinds of hemopoietic and lymphoid cells. Since this cytokine is known to be made by fibroblasts, we attempted to determine if the human fibroblast-derived growth inhibitor (hFDGI) was identical to IL-6. Neutralizing antibodies specific for IL-6 completely eliminated the inhibitory activity of hFDGI. Moreover, exposure to human recombinant IL-6 was found to inhibit the growth of early-stage melanoma cells obtained from radial growth phase (RGP) or early vertical growth phase (VGP) primary lesions in three of four cases. In contrast, melanoma cells from a number of more advanced VGP primary lesions, or from distant metastases, were completely resistant to this IL-6-mediated growth inhibition. Acquisition of an "IL-6-resistant" phenotype by metastatically competent melanoma cell variants may provide such cells with a proliferative advantage within the dermal mesenchyme (a hallmark of melanoma cells that are malignant), helping them eventually to dominate advanced primary lesions and to establish secondary growths elsewhere.
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PMID:Interleukin 6: a fibroblast-derived growth inhibitor of human melanoma cells from early but not advanced stages of tumor progression. 140 27

Congenitally immunodeficient strains of mice have proven valuable in the development of relevant models to study human tumor biology, metastases, and immunotherapy. Local invasion and extensive multiorgan metastases in athymic mice have been obtained following orthotopic implantation or onplantation of histologically intact fragments of human tumors. In C.B-17 severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mice or in triple immunodeficient, beige/nude/xid (BNX) mice, the development and spread of inoculated human leukemia/lymphoma and/or melanoma have mimicked, in some cases, those observed in patients. Reports of reconstitution of SCID and BNX mice with human myeloid or lymphoid cells have suggested that these models might be useful for the study of human immune responses to autologous tumors in vivo. The severe immunocompromised status of these mice have also led to evaluations of the therapeutic efficacy of adoptively transferred, tumor-reactive human T cells. In this report, we review the pertinent information currently available on the use of congenitally immunodeficient mice in studies of human cancer biology and treatment.
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PMID:The use of congenitally immunodeficient mice to study human tumor metastases and immunotherapy. 144 11

A model system for testing the efficacy of chemotherapy protocols for metastatic melanoma was established using cell cultures from two brain and three lymph node metastases of melanoma from five different patients. Continuously growing cultures which were positive for tyrosinase activity were analysed regarding their proliferation rate by continuous bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) labelling and subsequent Hoechst-33258/ethidium bromide flow cytometry. Melanoma cell cultures exhibit a strong sensitivity to BrdU: at 5% oxygen, 50% growth inhibition is attained with 360 +/- 130 microM BrdU (range: 130-520; n = 11) vs 650 +/- 50 microM BrdU (n = 3) for diploid human fibroblasts and 570 +/- 20 microM BrdU (n = 6) for human lymphoid cell lines. Moreover, BrdU sensitivity of melanoma cells is clearly oxygen dependent: 50% growth inhibition at 200 +/- 55 microM (range: 65-400 microM) for 20% oxygen vs 360 +/- 130 microM BrdU for 5% oxygen. The cell cycle kinetic mechanism of BrdU-induced growth inhibition is accumulation of cells in the first cycle G2 phase. On the basis of these results we suggest testing BrdU in chemotherapy protocols for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.
Melanoma Res 1992 Nov
PMID:Bromodeoxyuridine hypersensitivity of metastatic melanoma cells. 149 Jan 11

Soluble forms of low affinity Fc gamma receptors (Fc gamma R), also called IgG-binding factors (IgG-BF), have been shown to play a regulatory role in immune responses. By using an immunodot assay with the anti-mouse Fc gamma R MoAb, 2.4G2, the levels of IgG-BF have been measured in the sera of mice bearing syngeneic tumours of lymphoid or non-lymphoid origin or in mice injected with high doses of murine IgG. These sera contained large amounts of IgG-BF as compared with controls. In the case of mice bearing IgG2a- or IgG2b-secreting hybridomas or lymphomas, serum IgG-BF increased progressively with tumour size and serum monoclonal IgG concentration, reaching 4-12 times the normal levels. A less than three-fold increase was found in mice bearing an IgG1-secreting hybridoma or tumours which do not secrete IgG (IgA-secreting hybridoma, non-immunoglobulin-secreting lymphoid tumours or melanoma) or in mice injected with 9 mg of monoclonal IgG2a. The enhancement of serum IgG-BF levels was independent of the expression of Fc gamma R by the tumour cells, suggesting that the majority of IgG-BF secreted in response to tumours was produced by the host rather than by the tumour. The increased production of IgG-BF may participate in the control of tumour growth and in the modulation of the host immune responses in tumour-bearing animals.
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PMID:Increased levels of soluble low-affinity Fc gamma receptors (IgG-binding factors) in the sera of tumour-bearing mice. 153 Nov 89

A tetrazolium compound, XTT, bioreducible to a water-soluble formazan was used to develop a simplified cellular cytotoxicity assay. Most (13/15 melanoma and 2/3 colon carcinoma cell lines tested metabolized XTT greater than 50 times more efficiently than the lymphoid effector cells, and thus the test could be performed without separation of the effector from the target cells. The XTT assay (XTT-A) was compared to the standard 51chromium-release assay (51CrA) in terms of sensitivity as well as intra- and interassay variability using low effector to target cell (E:T) ratios and both short and long incubation periods. The correlation coefficient (r) for percent specific lysis (%SL: 35.0 +/- 15.0 versus 30.2 +/- 15.8) or lytic units (LU20/10(7) effector cells: 405 +/- 208 versus 357 +/- 227) between XTT-A and 51CrA was 0.86 for 4 h XTT-A and 51CrA (n = 37). Due to a poor performance of the 51CrA after 24 h incubation of effector and target cells, the correlation coefficient for 24 h assays was reduced to 0.79 (n = 44,%SL = 63.3 +/- 23.9 versus 55.5 +/- 26.6, and LU = 1267 +/- 982 versus 1017 +/- 691). Inter- and intra-assay variability of XTT-A were significantly lower than those for 51CrA. The total background values for XTT-A and 51CrA were similar in 4 h cytotoxicity assay and lower for XTT-A in assays with 24 h incubation. The sensitivity, in terms of discrimination between effector cells with different lytic capacity and targets with different susceptibility, was identical. The XTT-A was simpler, cheaper, and safer to perform than the 51CrA. Furthermore, the XTT-A was suitable for long-term assays and allowed experiments without requiring trypsinization of tumor cells grown in 96-well plates prior to testing.
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PMID:Improved short- and long-term XTT-based colorimetric cellular cytotoxicity assay for melanoma and other tumor cells. 154 98

Adoptive immunotherapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) and interleukin-2 (IL2) can induce regression of tumor metastases in animal models and in human metastatic malignant melanoma. We investigated the potential of colorectal cancer TIL as a source of killer cells and the effect of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) in combination with IL2 on their cytotoxic activity. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes were isolated from surgical specimens using a mechanical and enzymatic dissociation process. Autologous lamina propria mononuclear cells (LPMC) were used as control. Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and LPMC were cultured in the presence of IL2 with/without TNF alpha (1000 U/ml each) for 5 to 8 weeks. Cytotoxicity (% lysis) was tested against Daudi target cells in a 4-hr 51Cr-release assay. The combination of IL2 and TNF alpha resulted in a significantly greater-fold expansion of TIL than IL2 alone (P less than 0.01). Lamina propria mononuclear cells expanded less than TIL, and TNF alpha had an inhibitory effect on their growth (P less than 0.05). Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and LPMC showed comparable cytotoxicity when cultured with IL2 alone. However, the addition of TNF alpha augmented the killer activity of TIL while inhibiting that of LPMC (P = 0.035). These results indicate that TNF alpha selectively increases the IL2-induced growth and cytotoxic function of colorectal cancer TIL, but not those of gut mucosal lymphoid cells, suggesting that TIL and LMPC differ in their response to TNF alpha. Therefore, this combination of cytokines may hold more promise than single agents for the immunotherapy of colorectal cancers with TIL.
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PMID:Resident research award: tumor necrosis factor alpha selectively enhances growth and cytotoxic activity of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes from human colorectal cancer. 154 66

Langerhans cells (LC) are potent antigen-presenting dendritic cells essential for cutaneous immune responses. LC are reduced in number in the epidermis adjacent to primary melanomas and increase in number in the lymphoid infiltrate that accumulates in the dermis deep to such tumours. The present study was undertaken to assess whether the reduction in epidermal LC was accompanied by alterations in their functional competence. We evaluated the capacity of LC from melanoma patients to augment lymphocyte responses to phytohaemagglutinin (PHA), tetanus toxoid and melanoma-associated antigens. Using a panning method to bind Fc receptor positive (FcR+) cells we separated LC-enriched (FcR+) and depleted (FcR-) fractions of epidermal cells. Lymphocyte responses to PHA and tetanus toxoid were increased in the presence of LC-enriched cell populations, but not in the presence of LC-depleted epidermal cells. In preliminary experiments LC-enriched cell populations did not help initiate detectable in vitro lymphoproliferative responses to autologous metastatic melanoma cell lines, allogeneic HLA-DR+ metastatic melanoma cell lines, or a 180-190 kD melanoma tumour-associated antigen. Future studies will investigate the capacity of LC to augment responses to melanoma-associated antigens on autologous primary melanomas.
Melanoma Res 1992 May
PMID:Effect of epidermal Langerhans cells from melanoma patients on lymphoproliferative responses. 164 25


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