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The Universal Character of the Tumor-Associated Antigen Survivin

Authors' Affiliations: ¹ Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Department of Hematology, Herlev University Hospital, Herlev, Denmark and ² Department of Dermatology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

Requests for reprints: Mads Hald Andersen, Center for Cancer Immune Therapy, Department of Hematology, Herlev University Hospital, 54P4, Herlev Ringvej 75, Dk-2730 Herlev, Denmark. Phone: 45-4488-4000-82602; Fax: 45-4453-0176; E-mail: mahaan01{at}heh.regionh.dk.

Abstract

Survivin is expressed in most human neoplasms, but is absent in normal, differentiated tissues. Survivin is a bifunctional inhibitor of apoptosis protein that has been implicated in protection from apoptosis and regulation of mitosis. Several clinical trials targeting survivin with a collection of different approaches from small molecule antagonists to immunotherapy are currently under way. With regard to the latter, spontaneous anti-survivin T-cell reactivity has been described in cancer patients suffering from a huge range of cancers of different origin, e.g., breast and colon cancer, lymphoma, leukemia, and melanoma. Thus, survivin may serve as a universal target antigen for anticancer immunotherapy. Accordingly, down-regulation of survivin as a means of immune escape would severely inflict the survival capacity of tumor cells, which highlights this protein as a prime target candidate for therapeutic vaccinations against cancer. Data from several ongoing phase I/II trials targeting survivin for patients with advanced cancer will provide further information about this idea.

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