Antigens associated with primary cutaneous melanoma progression

Identification of human melanoma-associated peptide antigens for CTLs has opened unprecedented opportunities for active specific immunotherapy for melanoma with synthetic peptide. Therefore the frequency of particular MAA expression during the stages of tumor development is of interest for developing new immunotherapy protocols and tumor vaccines. In this study 25 surgical samples of very advanced primary melanoma (invasion depth >3.5mm) have been examined for expression of three differentiation (tyrosinase, MART-1 and gp100) and two progression antigens (MAGE-1 and MAGE-3). An unexpected finding was the high frequency of MAGE-1 and MAGE-3 expression-80% (20/25) and 88% (22/25) respectively.