Merkel Cell Carcinoma Vaccines
Creative Biolabs is a world leader in the field of cancer vaccine development. With our extensive experience and advanced platform, we are therefore confident in offering the best services for vaccine development against Merkle cell carcinoma and guarantee the finest results for our customers all over the world.
Merkel Cell Carcinoma
MCC is a highly aggressive neuroendocrine carcinoma of the skin, demonstrating a high rate of recurrence and metastasis. Although the incidence of MCC is rapidly increasing since its first description, it still is a very rare tumor. Indeed, only a small fraction of cutaneous malignancies are MCCs, with age-adjusted annual incidence rates of 0.18 to 0.41 per 100,000 persons in the United States and Europe, and almost 1 per 100,000 persons in Australia.
MCC is a fast-growing, asymptomatic, solitary, firm, nonsensitive, flesh to red to violaceous nodule with a smooth, shiny surface. MCC characteristically develops and grows rapidly over weeks to months on chronically sun-damaged skin. Thus, the predominant sites are head and neck (more than half of cases) and extremities (one third of cases), whereas trunk, oral and genital mucosa are involved in less than 10% of cases. MCC has propensity for early metastatic spread as well as local recurrence, and while surgery and radiotherapy can achieve high rates of locoregional control, chemotherapy rarely provides durable responses for distant metastatic disease.
Our Vaccine Platforms for Merkel Cell Carcinoma
- MCPyV-Based Vaccines
A new human polyomavirus termed Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) was discovered to be associated with MCC. The carcinogenicity of MCPyV is supported by several lines of evidence. It is well established that polyomaviruses can transform cells and induce tumors in experimental animal models. MCPyV has been detected in about 80% of MCC tumors worldwide. In these tumors, the virus is present as a chromosomally integrated copy, a characteristic of some viruses that cause cancers in humans. The MCPyV integration is clonal and the site is unique for each patient, indicating that the virus was present in the cell before or during oncogenic transformation. Compared to MCPyV in normal tissue, MCPyV genomes in tumor tissue harbor stop codon mutations in the large T antigen (LT) open reading frame that are predicted to ablate viral replication capacity. In particular, the amino terminus of MCPyV large T antigen (LT) (aa1-258) is expressed in all MCPyV-positive tumors and plays an important role in MCC oncogenesis, rendering it an ideal therapeutic target for vaccination. Thus, sufficient evidence has accumulated to provisionally consider MCPyV as the etiological agent of MCC and to explore therapies that target the virus. The importance of MCPyV LT in MCC oncogenesis renders it a potentially ideal target for molecular intervention. Based on this, a DNA vaccine has been created to generate potent antigen-specific CD8+ T cell immunity for the control of MCC.
- Interleukin-12 (IL-12) Plasmid Vaccines
Intratumoral injection, to avoid peripheral toxicity, of an interleukin-12 (IL-12) plasmid vaccine followed by electroporation in mouse melanomas demonstrated increased IL-12, interferon-gamma, and tumor lymphocytes, as well as reduced tumor vascularity.
Creative Biolabs is a leader in the field of vaccine development and has focused on the cancer vaccines for years. We have experts who are able to help you with the Merkle cell carcinoma vaccine development. If you are interested in our services, please contact us for more details.
References
- Zeng, Q. (2012). “Development of a DNA vaccine targeting Merkel cell polyomavirus.” Vaccine 30 (7), 1322-1329.
- Cassler, NM. (2016). “Merkel Cell Carcinoma Therapeutic Update.” Curr Treat Options Oncol 17 (7): 36.
All of our products can only be used for research purposes. These vaccine ingredients CANNOT be used directly on humans or animals.
