Complex humoral immune response against a benign tumor: frequent antibody response against specific antigens as diagnostic targets

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Jul 5;102(27):9601-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0500404102. Epub 2005 Jun 27.

Abstract

There are numerous studies on the immune response against malignant human tumors. This study was aimed to address the complexity and specificity of humoral immune response against a benign human tumor. We assembled a panel of 62 meningioma-expressed antigens that show reactivity with serum antibodies of meningioma patients, including 41 previously uncharacterized antigens by screening of a fetal brain expression library. We tested the panel for reactivity with 48 sera, including sera of patients with common-type, atypical, and anaplastic meningioma, respectively. Meningioma sera detected an average of 14.6 antigens per serum and normal sera an average of 7.8 antigens per serum (P = 0.0001). We found a decline of seroreactivity with malignancy with a statistical significant difference between common-type and anaplastic meningioma (P < 0.05). We detected 17 antigens exclusively with patient sera, including 12 sera that were reactive against KIAA1344, 9 against natural killer tumor recognition (NKTR), and 7 against SRY (sex determining region Y)-box2 (SOX2). More than 80% of meningioma patients had antibodies against at least one of the antigens KIAA1344, SC65, SOX2, and C6orf153. Our results show a highly complex but specific humoral immune response against a benign tumor with a distinct serum reactivity pattern and a decline of complexity with malignancy. The frequent antibody response against specific antigens offers new diagnostic and therapeutic targets for meningioma. We developed a statistical learning method to differentiate sera of meningioma patients from sera of healthy donors.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Antibodies, Neoplasm / blood*
  • Antibody Formation / immunology*
  • Antibody Specificity
  • Antigens, Neoplasm / immunology*
  • Antigens, Neoplasm / metabolism
  • Brain / metabolism
  • DNA Primers
  • Discriminant Analysis
  • Gene Library
  • Humans
  • Meninges / metabolism
  • Meningioma / blood
  • Meningioma / immunology*
  • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Serologic Tests

Substances

  • Antibodies, Neoplasm
  • Antigens, Neoplasm
  • DNA Primers