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Separating Autoimmune And Anti-Tumor Responses With Hsp70iq435a, James Mahon

Master's Theses

Vitiligo and melanoma are both melanocyte-derived diseases; vitiligo progresses through the autoimmune-targeted destruction of healthy melanocytes while melanoma results from uncontrolled proliferation of cancerous melanocytes. Treatment of vitiligo with HSP70iQ435A inhibits the DC-mediated auto-immune response against melanocytes in vitiligo mouse models; this raises the concern that treatment with this modified HSP may also inhibit natural anti-tumor responses against melanocyte-derived melanoma tumor cells.

We hypothesized that HSP70iQ435A prevents migration of melanocyte-antigen reactive T cells to the skin in a way that is mechanistically different from anti-tumor responses to melanoma and therefore would not have a negative effect on anti-tumor responses. We …