Cancer vaccines targeted against tumour cells seek to mimic immune responses against viral infections. Given the unique properties of B cells that allow them to present antigens proficiently, activated B cells can be used in a vaccine setting to launch effective anti-tumour T cell responses. Activation induced cell death, however, presents a major hurdle in the generation of large numbers of B cells. Since apoptosis is mediated by oxidative stress, uric acid was used as an antioxidant, enabling increased growth of normal B cells. Further investigation in TK6 cells revealed that uric acid was mediating its effects extracellularly and initiating signaling pathways that culminated in the activation of ERK and JNK proteins and production of IL10, which was necessary, but not sufficient, in mediating the growth effects of uric acid. The results outlined in this study implicate uric acid as a novel growth factor for activated B cells.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/17519 |
| Date | 10 August 2009 |
| Creators | Khaja, Hajera |
| Contributors | Spaner, David |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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