Abstract
The elucidation of the immune response to cancer should be of great help in the development of new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of breast cancer. Based on recent advances in our basic understanding of antigen recognition by T lymphocytes, it has been possible to identify several human tumor-associated antigens (TAA) recognized by CTLs (cytotoxic T lymphocytes). However, the expression for these TAAs has been shown to be relatively low in BC (Breast Cancer) tumor cells. A new protein named mammaglobin has been demonstrated to be exclusively expressed in the mammary epithelium. In addition, 90% of primary BC tumors have detectable levels of mammaglobin protein Given the exclusive mammaglobin expression in BC tumors, this novel protein may prove to be a TAA highly specific for BC that could be utilized in the near future for in vitro BC-specific activation of CTLs. The discovery of mammaglobin-derived antigenic peptides that are highly expressed in BC tumor tissue and are recognized by CTLs offer many exciting future therapeutic options for the treatment of BC.