@article{KollgaardUgurelBeckerIdornetal.2015,
  author    = {K{\o}llgaard, Tania and Ugurel-Becker, Selma and Idorn, Manja and Andersen, Mads Hald and Becker, J{\"u}rgen C. and Straten, Per thor},
  title     = {Pre-Vaccination Frequencies of Th17 Cells Correlate with Vaccine-Induced T-Cell Responses to Survivin-Derived Peptide Epitopes},
  series = {PLoS One},
  volume    = {10},
  journal   = {PLoS One},
  number    = {7},
  doi       = {10.1371/journal.pone.0131934},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-151509},
  pages     = {e0131934},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {Various subsets of immune regulatory cells are suggested to influence the outcome of therapeutic antigen-specific anti-tumor vaccinations. We performed an exploratory analysis of a possible correlation of pre-vaccination Th17 cells, MDSCs, and Tregs with both vaccination-induced T-cell responses as well as clinical outcome in metastatic melanoma patients vaccinated with survivin-derived peptides. Notably, we observed dysfunctional Th1 and cytotoxic T cells, i.e. down-regulation of the CD3\(\zeta\)chain (p=0.001) and an impaired IFN\(\gamma\)-production (p=0.001) in patients compared to healthy donors, suggesting an altered activity of immune regulatory cells. Moreover, the frequencies of Th17 cells (p=0.03) and Tregs (p=0.02) were elevated as compared to healthy donors. IL-17-secreting CD4\(^{+}\) T cells displayed an impact on the immunological and clinical effects of vaccination: Patients characterized by high frequencies of Th17 cells at pre-vaccination were more likely to develop survivin-specific T-cell reactivity post-vaccination (p=0.03). Furthermore, the frequency of Th17 (p=0.09) and Th17/IFN\(\gamma\)\(^{+}\) (p=0.19) cells associated with patient survival after vaccination. In summary, our explorative, hypothesis-generating study demonstrated that immune regulatory cells, in particular Th17 cells, play a relevant role for generation of the vaccine-induced anti-tumor immunity in cancer patients, hence warranting further investigation to test for validity as predictive biomarkers.},
  language  = {en}
}