Dendritic cells (DCs) loaded with killed allogeneic melanoma cells can cross-prime naive CD8+ T cells to differentiate into melanoma-specific CTLs in 3-wk cultures. In this study we show that DCs loaded with killed melanoma cells that were heated to 42°C before killing are more efficient in cross-priming of naive CD8+ T cells than DCs loaded with unheated killed melanoma cells. The enhanced cross-priming was demonstrated by several parameters: 1) induction of naive CD8+ T cell differentiation in 2-wk cultures, 2) enhanced killing of melanoma peptide-pulsed T2 cells, 3) enhanced killing of HLA-A*0201+ melanoma cells in a standard 4-h chromium release assay, and 4) enhanced capacity to prevent tumor growth in vitro in a tumor regression assay. Two mechanisms might explain the hyperthermia-induced enhanced cross-priming. First, heat-treated melanoma cells expressed increased levels of 70-kDa heat shock protein (HSP70), and enhanced cross-priming could be reproduced by overexpression of HSP70 in melanoma cells transduced with HSP70 encoding lentiviral vector. Second, hyperthermia resulted in the increased transcription of several tumor Ag-associated Ags, including MAGE-B3, -B4, -A8, and -A10. Thus, heat treatment of tumor cells permits enhanced cross-priming, possibly via up-regulation of both HSPs and tumor Ag expression.

Gene therapy is an attractive therapy for hepatocarcinoma, and several approaches have been studied using murine leukemia virus-derived retroviruses. We compared gene transfer efficacy and transgene expression kinetics after transduction of hepatocarcinoma cell lines using enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-expressing murine leukemia virus-derived retroviral vectors and HIV-derived lentiviral vectors. First, we showed that both retroviral and lentiviral vectors efficiently transduce cycling hepatocarcinoma cell lines in vitro. However, after cell cycle arrest, transduction efficacy remained the same for lentiviral vectors but it decreased by 80% for retroviral vectors. Second, we studied EGFP expression kinetics using lentiviral vectors expressing EGFP under the control of cytomegalovirus (CMV) or phosphoglycerolkinase (PGK) promoter. We show that the CMV promoter allows a stronger EGFP expression than the PGK promoter. However, in contrast to PGK-driven EGFP expression, which persists up to 2 months after transduction, CMV-driven EGFP expression rapidly decreased with time. This phenomenon is due to promoter silencing, and EGFP expression can be restored in transduced cells by using transcription activators such as interleukin-6 or phorbol myristate acetate/ionomycin and, to a lesser extent, the demethylating agent 5Ј-azacytidine. Altogether, our results suggest that lentiviral vectors, which allow efficient transduction of hepatocarcinoma cell lines with a strong and a sustained expression according to the promoter used, are promising tools for gene therapy of hepatocarcinomas.

In this work focusing on the Kidd blood group system that relies on expression of hUT-B1 glycoprotein under the Jk(a) or Jk(b) antigenic configurations, we demonstrated that hematopoietic progenitors could be genetically modified to exhibit a chosen Kidd phenotype. Beyond production of atypical Kidd phenotypes, this genetic strategy could allow generation of rare blood phenotypes from hematopoietic stem cells regardless of initial donor phenotype. Potential applications for genetically modified blood include production of control samples for immunohematologic testing and for resolution of antibody detection in multiply transfused patients.

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We have studied the transcriptional regulation of the (3 tubulin gene by the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20-OH-E) in Drosophila Kc cells. A series of hybrid genes with varying tubulin gene lengths driving the bacterial chloramphenicol acetyl transferase (CAT) gene were constructed. The promoter activity was assayed after transient expression in Kc cells, in the presence or absence of 20-OH-E. We find that 0.911Kb upstream from the transcription start site contain one or several hormone independent positive cis-acting elements, responsible for the constitutive expression of the O3 tubulin gene. In the large (4.5 Kb) first intron of this gene, we identified additionnal hormone dependent negative and positive regulatory elements, which can act in both directions and in a position-independence manner. Then, the negative intron element(s), which repress the transcription in the absence of 20-OH-E has characteristics of silencer.