A MAGE‐A1 peptide is recognized on HLA‐B7 human tumors by cytolytic T lymphocytes

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Acknowledgments: We thank Ms. N. Krack and Mr. S. Mapp for their help in the preparation of the manuscript, Dr. V. Stroobant for the synthesis of the peptides, and Mrs. V. Ha Thi for processing the blood samples. We are grateful to Dr. D. Rimoldi (Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne) for providing us with several melanoma cell lines. R. Luiten was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the “Training and mobility of researchers” program of the European Commission. Antigens encoded by MAGE genes are of particular interest for cancer immunotherapy because of their strict tumoral specificity and because they are shared by many tumors. MAGE antigenic peptides are currently used in therapeutic vaccination trials. The identification of additional antigenic peptides is likely to be important for the future of these clinical trials in order to increase the number of patients eligible for these vaccinations and to analyze in detail the T‐cell response of vaccinated patients. We describe here the isolation of a cytolytic T lymphocyte (CTL) clone which recognizes a new MAGE‐A1 peptide, RVRFFFPSL (MAGE‐A1289–297), which is presented by HLA‐B7. This CTL clone lysed HLA‐B7 tumor cells expressing MAGE‐A1. HLA‐B7 is expressed by approximately 20% of Caucasians.