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Immunology |
Departments of Ophthalmology [L. R. H. M. S., M. J. J.] and Immunohaematology and Blood Bank [A. T. d. B., L. D., E. I. H. v. d. V., C. J. M. M., R. E. M. T.], Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, the Netherlands, and Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, Loyola University of Chicago, 2160 South First Avenue, Maywood, Illinois 60153 [W. M. K.]
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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In the past 20 years, various animal models of intraocular tumors have been used to study whether the immune system can be manipulated to prevent or eradicate ocular tumors. Tumor eradication by adoptive transfer of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes could be induced in FVB/N mice (10) . In this ocular tumor model, the mice needed to be sublethally irradiated to acquire extensively growing ocular tumors. In other studies, using the B16F10 ocular melanoma model (11) and the P91 mastocytoma model (12) , only eradication of metastases and not the primary ocular tumor could be accomplished by adoptive T-cell transfer. However, although these studies applied adoptive transfer, they did not test whether adoptive transfer of T cells could lead to complete tumor eradication without damaging the surrounding ocular tissues in immunocompetent mice.
In the present study, we developed a syngeneic murine intraocular tumor model using Ad5E13 -transformed tumor cells, which express well-defined CTL epitopes derived from the E1A and E1B oncogenes (13 , 14) . Because these epitopes are recognized by available tumor-specific cytotoxic T cells, we determined whether therapeutic intervention in intraocular tumor-bearing mice would lead to tumor eradication without affecting the normal ocular tissue.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Tumor Cells.
Ad5E1-transformed (C57BL/6 origin) and Ad5E1 + ras-transformed mouse embryo cells were generated and maintained as described previously (13
, 14)
. Monocellular suspensions of Ad5E1-induced tumor cells were washed and resuspended in PBS for s.c. and intracameral injections.
Intracameral Inoculations.
A modified quantitative technique for deposition of a definite number of tumor cells into the anterior chamber of the mouse eye was used (15)
. Mice were deeply anesthetized with a mixture (ratio, 1:1) of xylozine (Rompun 2%; Bayer, Leverkusen, Germany) and ketamine hydrochloride (Aescoket; Aesculaap bv, Boxtel, the Netherlands) given i.p. The eye was viewed under the low power (8x) of a dissecting microscope, and a sterile 30-gauge needle was used to puncture the cornea at the corneoscleral junction, parallel and anterior to the iris. A glass micropipette (
80 µm in diameter) was fitted into a sterile infant feeding tube, which was mounted onto a sterile 0.1-ml Hamilton syringe (Hamilton Co., Inc., Whittier, CA). The pipette, loaded with Ad5E1 cell suspension (0.3 x 106 cells/4 µl), was introduced through the puncture site of the cornea, and 4 µl of the Ad5E1 cell suspension was delivered into the anterior chamber. The eyes were examined three times per week with a dissecting microscope to observe and document tumor growth.
s.c. Inoculations.
Ad5E1-transformed tumor cells or Ad5E1 + ras-transformed cells (107) were suspended in 250 µl of PBS and inoculated s.c. in the right flank.
Cell-mediated Lymphocyte Cytotoxicity.
Cell-mediated cytotoxicity was measured by using a Eu3+ release assay as described previously (16)
. The mean percentage of specific lysis in triplicate wells was calculated as follows: % specific lysis = [(cpm experimental release - cpm spontaneous release)/(cpm maximum release - cpm spontaneous release)] x 100.
Peptide Immunization and Challenge with Ad5E1 + ras-transformed Tumor Cells.
Peptide immunizations were performed as described previously (17
, 18)
. Peptides dissolved in 100 µl of PBS were mixed extensively with 100 µl of incomplete Freunds adjuvant and 0.5% BSA. The 200-µl mixture was injected s.c. in C57BL/6 mice. Two weeks later, mice received a s.c. challenge with 107 Ad5E1 + ras-transformed tumor cells (clone SR2,3B) suspended in 250 µl of PBS.
In Vivo Administration of C57BL/6 Ad5E1-specific CTL Clone 0.1C2.
In vivo administration of tumor-specific CTL clones was performed as described previously (13
, 14)
. In short, C57BL/6 mice with growing Ad5E1-induced tumors in the anterior chamber were assigned randomly to one of the following three treatments: (a) i.v. injection of Ad5E1-specific CTL clone 0.1C2 (1.5 x 107) in combination with a s.c. injection of 105 Cetus units of recombinant interleukin 2; (b) i.v. injection of HPV-16-specific CTL clone 9.5 (control), in combination with a s.c. injection of 105 Cetus units of recombinant interleukin 2; and (c) no treatment.
| RESULTS |
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50% of the anterior chamber were challenged s.c. with Ad5E1 + ras-transformed tumor cells. These mice, in contrast to animals (n = 8) vaccinated s.c. with irradiated Ad5E1-induced tumor cells, developed a small s.c. tumor that disappeared after 10 days. Mice receiving the tolerizing E1B peptide were not able to control tumor growth (Fig. 3)
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Adoptive Transfer of Ad5E1-specific CTL Clone 0.1C2.
The results described above indicate that preactivated CTLs can control the outgrowth of intraocular tumors. To study whether a tumor-specific CTL clone is able to eradicate established tumors, we treated intraocular tumor-bearing animals by adoptive transfer with E1B-specific CTL clones. Mice with a tumor mass filling 5075% of the anterior chamber received an i.v. injection of 1.5 x 107 E1B-specific CTLs into the lateral tail vein (n = 5; Fig. 4)
. Within 3 days after adoptive transfer, the tumors in the treated group were eradicated in contrast to those in mice that had received an HPV-16-specific CTL clone as control. Examination of the eyes in vivo and in vitro showed no viable abnormalities. These results show for the first time that adoptive transfer of tumor-specific CTLs can be used successfully to treat intraocular tumors without inducing any damage to the surrounding tissues. No signs of intratumoral vascularization or inflammation were observed. After injection of CTLs, areas of inflammation were also absent (Fig. 5)
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5075% of the anterior chamber. Spleens were collected, and bulk CTL cultures were tested for their reactivity against the E1B epitope. Although tumor-specific CTLs were present in mice immunized with Ad5E1-induced tumor cells, no specific CTL reactivity could be measured at this time in the cultures derived from intraocular tumor-bearing animals. These results confirm the observation that the intraocular tumor is initially ignored by the immune system (Fig. 6A)
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| DISCUSSION |
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The anterior chamber is a known immune-privileged site with the capacity to interfere with antitumor responses (22 , 23) . Placement of tumor cells in the anterior chamber might therefore even lead to the induction of T-cell tolerance (22) . To study the interference of the intraocular environment with the development of antitumor responses in vivo, we tested whether Ad5E1-tumor cells injected into the anterior chamber induced T-cell tolerance. We obtained no evidence of the development of tumor-specific tolerance. Instead, our results indicate that intraocular tumors were initially ignored by the immune system but eventually induced systemic T cell-mediated immunity. The reason why these tumors, despite progressive growth, were ultimately able to induce E1B-specific CTL responses are as yet unclear but might be explained by the immunogenic characteristics of the antigens expressed on the tumor cells or the necessity of reaching a critical antigen density in the anterior chamber (24) .
Remarkably, as for the adoptive transfer experiments, no discernible scarring was observed after spontaneous eradication of the intraocular tumor. The results of these experiments showed that growing intraocular tumors can induce systemic T cell-mediated immunity, although with a delayed appearance.
In another syngeneic intraocular murine tumor model, Niederkorn and Meunier (25) used a P91 mastocytoma (DBA/2 origin) tumor cell line. This cell line expressed strong tumor-specific antigens. Similarly to our Ad5E1-induced tumor cell line, P91 tumors grew transiently in the anterior chamber and were then spontaneously rejected (12) . However, rejection of the P91 intraocular tumor was accompanied by ischemic necrosis and complete atrophy of the affected eye. This rejection was considered to be consistent with a delayed-type hypersensitivity-mediated process (26) . The Ad5E1-induced tumor in our model is also rejected, but the eye seems to be completely unaffected. This suggests that tumor-specific CTLs, not delayed-type hypersensitivity, are responsible for the tumor eradication in our model, as suggested by our results with passive transfer of cloned CTLs. This mode of tumor rejection is very similar to that described in a UV5C25 ocular tumor model (27) . In a histopathological analysis, Niederkorn (26) described this way of spontaneous tumor rejection as piecemeal necrosis and strongly suggested that this type of rejection was mediated by direct cytolysis by tumor-specific cytotoxic T cells. It confirms the idea that the immunogenic strength of antigens expressed by inoculated tumor cells may influence the outcome of immunological privilege of the anterior chamber (28) . We hypothesize that the E1B oncoprotein, which is expressed by Ad5E1-induced tumor cells, is a potent antigenic stimulus that finally breaks the putative state of immune deviation (29) and induces a strong tumor-specific CTL reaction. This is also the case with strongly immunogenic (such as MHC-incompatible) tumors, like P815 tumors in the eye of C57BL/6 mice. The local inhibiting circuits are overcome, and conversion of precursor CTLs into CTLs takes place, leading to tumor rejection (30) .
Complete protection against intraocularly growing Ad5E1-induced tumors could be achieved by s.c. vaccination with tumor cells. Such induced T cells were able to prevent intraocular tumor growth. This result contributes to the reflection that manipulation of the immune system can lead to tumor eradication and even to protection against intraocular tumor growth, despite local immune privilege.
Although the Ad5E1-induced tumor is based on a murine cell line, its unique pattern of rejection bears an interesting similarity to the behavior of uveal melanoma and retinoblastoma, which are known to sporadically undergo spontaneous resolution (4 , 5) . Our results are encouraging with respect to the possibility of treating immunogenic ocular tumors by tumor-specific vaccination or by adoptive transfer of tumor-specific CTLs, especially because these effector cells are able to eradicate intraocular tumors without inducing apparent sight-threatening side effects.
| FOOTNOTES |
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1 This work was supported in part by the Stichting Blinden-Penning, the Haagsch Oogheelkundig Fonds, the Professor Hoppenbrouwers Fonds of the Prins Bernard Fonds, NIH Grant RO1 CA/AI 78399 (to W. M. K.), the Dutch Cancer Foundation (Grants RUL 97-1449 and RUL 97-1450), and a fellowship from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (to R. E. M. T.). ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be addressed, at Department of Ophthalmology, Leiden University Medical Center, P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, the Netherlands. ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: Ad5E1, adenovirus type 5 early region 1; HPV-16, human papillomavirus type 16. ![]()
Received 4/16/99. Accepted 8/20/99.
| REFERENCES |
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