By Dr Jodie Abramovitch
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the fifth most common cause of
cancer-related death among women. Detection of OC is difficult with diagnosis
often occurring at an advanced stage. Many women who have undergone
conventional treatment, involving surgery and chemotherapy, have a poor
prognosis for the 5 years post-treatment.
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| Past and present members of the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases Laboratory. (L-R) Sue Xiang, Ying Ying Kong, Rohimah Mohamud, Qian Gao, Kirsty Wilson, Mutsa Madondo, Chindu Govindaraj, Magda Plebanski |
Dr Sue Xiang and other members of the Vaccine and Infectious Diseases laboratory under Professor Magdalena Plebanski in the Department of Immunology and Pathology are working on developing an effective peptide-based
vaccine for OC. Peptide vaccines can induce highly specific immune responses which
limits adverse side effects. In two recent studies, they characterised peptides from the human Sp17 protein which is expressed abnormally in many OC
cases.
Mice were immunised with peptides from the Sp17 protein and the
responding immune cells were analysed. This revealed that one particular region
of the Sp17 protein was able to induce the production of antibodies and a protective cytokine (IFN-γ; pro-inflammatory) response. When using this region of Sp17 in a vaccine, tumour progression was significantly delayed in an OC tumour mouse model.These initial studies suggest that this region of Sp17 may have therapeutic potential and be able to be utilised as a vaccine target against OC.
Reference: Xiang SD, Gao Q, Wilson KL, Heyerick A, Plebanski M. Mapping T and B cell
epitopes in sperm protein 17 to support the development of an ovarian cancer
vaccine. Vaccine. 2015 Nov; 33: 5950-9
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.07.094
Reference: Xiang SD, Gao Q, Wilson KL, Heyerick A, Plebanski M. A Nanoparticle Based Sp17 Peptide Vaccine Exposes New Immuno-Dominant and Species Cross-reactive B Cell Epitopes. Vaccines. 2015 Oct; 3: 875-893
doi:10.3390/vaccines3040875
Reference: Xiang SD, Gao Q, Wilson KL, Heyerick A, Plebanski M. A Nanoparticle Based Sp17 Peptide Vaccine Exposes New Immuno-Dominant and Species Cross-reactive B Cell Epitopes. Vaccines. 2015 Oct; 3: 875-893
doi:10.3390/vaccines3040875
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