Development of a prostate cancer DNA-vaccine

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter Öhlschläger
• Subject Area: Immunology
• Term: from 2007 to 2009
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 36535011

Treatment of prostate cancer (PCa) patients by surgery or radiotherapy may be effective for presumed organ-confined tumors - however, about one-third of men with PCa will have progressive or metastatic disease at 10 years. A promising possibility to make a therapeutic treatment more effective could be the development of a DNA vaccine.We will pursue the development of an artificial prostate-acid-phosphatase (PAP)-based DNA vaccine. To increase the efficacy we will take advantage of features like Kozak-sequence, SV-40 enhancer as a nuclear signal, CpG-enhanced plasmid vector and fusion of PAP to the J domain of SV40 large T to enhance cross-presentation. The PAP-vaccine will be investigated in a murine PCa vaccine model in combination with different DNA-encoded cytokines as IL-2, IL-12, IFN-γ, GM-CSF and MIP-1α.Due to the close connection to the Canton Hospital St. Gallen (Swiss) the most promising combination will be transferred to the clinic as soon as possible.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Marcus Groettrup (†)