Immunotherapy of radioresistant mammary tumors with early metastasis using molecular chaperone vaccines combined with ionizing radiation.

In the current study, exposure of mammary tumor cells derived from mice transgenic for the polyomavirus middle T oncogene to ionizing radiation resulted in the generation of a tumor cell population that preferentially expressed cancer stem cell markers. In addition, these cells were more resistant to subsequent radiation treatments and appeared to acquire an enhanced capacity for dissemination to the lungs of mice. Therefore, we tested an immunotherapy approach to the treatment of local and disseminated mammary tumor cells in a murine model using a recently developed molecular chaperone-based vaccine that specifically targets the radioresistant subpopulation of tumor cells. Heat shock protein 70-peptide complexes (Hsp70.PC-F) were extracted from fusions of dendritic cells and radiation-enriched tumor cells, and the resulting chaperone vaccines were used to treat mice with pre-existing lung metastases. Immunization of mice with the Hsp70.PC-F vaccine resulted in a T cell-mediated immune response, including a significant increase in CD4 and CD8 T cell proliferation and the induction of effector T cells capable of targeting radioresistant tumor cells. Importantly, the growth of primary tumors was inhibited, and the number of tumor cells metastasizing to lung was reduced significantly by combining chaperone vaccine with radiotherapy. These results indicate that Hsp70.PC-F vaccine can induce specific immunity to radioresistant populations of mammary tumor cells and, thus, can complement radiotherapy, leading to synergistic killing.