A survivin specific T-cell clone from a breast cancer patient displays universal tumor cell lysis

Survivin is an attractive candidate for cancer immunotherapy since it is overexpressed in most common human cancers, poorly expressed in most normal adult tissues and is essential for cancer cell survival. Previously, we and others have demonstrated that survivin-specific immune responses are present in cancer patients. However, a significant limitation of these findings has been that antigen-specific lysis of tumors was achieved using polyclonal T-cell lines rather than a specific T-cell clone. In the present study we isolated and expanded a survivin specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) clone from the peripheral blood of a cancer patient. The survivin specific CTL clone efficiently lysed a large panel of tumor cells of different origin, i.e., breast cancer, colon cancer and melanoma cells. The data support the notion that survivin may serve as a universal target antigen for anti-cancer immunotherapy.