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Enhancement of antitumor immunity by low-dose total body irradiationis associated with selectively decreasing the proportion and number of T regulatorycells

Cellular & Molecular Immunology volume 7, pages 157–162 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Low-dose total body irradiation (LTBI) is used in the treatment of somecancers mainly for immune enhancement rather than cell killing. However, themechanism underlying LTBI remains unknown. In this study, by analyzing theimmune patterns of lymphocytes, we found that the percentage and absolutenumber of CD4+CD25+Foxp3+regulatory T cells are markedly decreased in naive mice following treatmentwith LTBI. On the contrary, the CD4+CD44+/CD8+CD44+effector-memory T cells are greatly increased. Importantly, naive mice treatedwith dendritic cell-gp100 tumor vaccines under LTBI induced an enhancementof antigen-specific proliferation and cytotoxicity as well as interferon-γ(IFN-γ) secretion against F10 melanoma tumor challenge, compared to treatmentwith either the tumor vaccine or LTBI alone. Consequently, the treatment resultedin a reduced tumor burden and prolonged mouse survival. Our data demonstratethat LTBI’s enhancement of antitumor immunity was mainly associatedwith selectively decreasing the proportion and number of T regulatory cells,implying the potential application of the combination of LTBI and a tumorvaccine in antitumor therapy.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundationof China (30872387 and 60537030), the National Fund for Talent Training inBasic Science (J0730860) and the National Basic Research Program (973 Program,2010CB912603).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Immunology, Shanghai Medical College,Institute for Immunobiology, Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine of Ministryof Education, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Rongjun Liu, Shudao Xiong, Lei Zhang & Yiwei Chu

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  1. Rongjun Liu
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  2. Shudao Xiong
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Correspondence to Yiwei Chu.

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Liu, R., Xiong, S., Zhang, L. et al. Enhancement of antitumor immunity by low-dose total body irradiationis associated with selectively decreasing the proportion and number of T regulatorycells. Cell Mol Immunol 7, 157–162 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/cmi.2009.117

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