Immunologic evaluation of peptides derived from BCR/ABL-out-of-frame fusion protein in HLA A2.1 transgenic mice

Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myelogenous leukemia and acute lymphocytic leukemia express, besides the main BCR/ABL transcripts, novel BCR/ABL transcripts derived from alternative splicing between BCR exons 1, 13, or 14 with ABL exons 4 and 5. Their translational products present at C-terminus an amino acid portion derived from out-of-frame (OOF) reading of the ABL gene. The presence of OOF-peptide-specific T cells in chronic myelogenous leukemia patients was demonstrated and a first study in in vivo model demonstrated that OOF ABL portion was immunogenic in human leukcocyte antigen (HLA)-A2.1 transgenic mice. Here we immunized HLA A2.1 mice with novel peptides designed on the ABL OOF sequence, containing epitopes with high affinity for HLA A2.1 molecule. The specific immune response, cellular and humoral, obtained ex vivo against HLA A2.1-positive human chronic myelogenous leukemia cells using peptide 22-53 and the cytotoxic activity induced by peptide 32mer confirm the possibility to use the ABL OOF portion as target to evoke a specific and multiple immune response in Philadelphia positive leukemic patients in cytogenetic remission.