On March 16, 2014, researchers at Xiaoming Gao’s group published an articleentitled “The (1→6)-b-Glucan Moiety Represents a Cross-Reactive Epitopeof Infection-Induced Malignancy Surveillance” in Journal of Immunology.
Exposure to pathogen-associated molecular patterns(PAMPs) by vaccination or infection is known to have beneficial effects onneoplastic diseases, although the underlying molecular mechanisms are so farunclear. In this article, we report that Abs against (1→6)-b-D-glucan, a typicalmicrobial PAMP and a major target for high titer circulating natural Abs inhealthy human subjects, cross-recognize a novel tumor-associated carbohydrateAg on cancer cells. The (1→6)-b-glucan cross-reactive moiety is immunologically dominantin tumor cells, as C57BL/6 mice harboring EL-4 solid tumors produced anti-(1→6)-b-glucan Abs and thetiter of which significantly correlated with enhanced survival and smallertumor burden. Moreover, the (1→6)-b-glucan–specific Abs exhibited potent tumoricidalactivities in vitro. C57BL/6 mice immunized with Candida albicans producedprotective immunity against inoculated EL-4 tumors, which was attributed to theformation of (1→6)-b-glucan–specific Abs. Importantly, (1→6)-b-glucan–specific Abs significantlyprolonged the survival and reduced the tumor size in mice inoculated with EL-4tumors. Our results demonstrate that the (1→6)-b-glucan cross-reactivemoiety represents a focal point between infection immunity and cancersurveillance, and natural Abs against this epitope may contribute to thefirst-line antitumor surveillance in humans. Our data also provide importantexplanation for the long-observed relationship between feverish infection andconcurrent remission from cancer.
Dr. Hongliang Dong and Hui Dai are the firstauthors of the paper. Contributing author are Xiaomin Hu and Sidong Xiong.Prof. Xiaoming Gao is the corresponding author of the paper. This work was supported by the National Foundation ofNatural Science of China (Grant 31370908/31070781), National Key Basic ResearchPrograms (Grant 2010CB529102), the Program for Changjiang Scholars andInnovative Research Team (Grant IRT1075), and the Jiangsu Provincial InnovativeResearch Team, Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Province HigherEducation Institutions.