Efficient responses in a murine renal tumor model by electroloading dendritic cells with whole-tumor lysate

Electroporation of dendritic cells (DCs) with tumor lysate elicited greater antitumor responses in vitro and in vivo, using less lysate than standard coincubation. Electroloaded DCs had normal surface marker expression and matured into competent antigen-presenting cells. In a renal carcinoma (RENCA) model, mice were pretreated with lysate-loaded DCs before tumor challenge. Mice that received DCs electroloaded with RENCA lysate had significantly smaller tumors (9 +/- 6 mm(2)) than mice given DCs coincubated with the same lysate (23 +/- 5 mm(2)). To evaluate a metastatic therapeutic tumor model, mice were first injected with Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) and then given 2 doses of cryopreserved LLC lysate-loaded DCs. Mice treated with electroloaded DCs had a 50% reduction in lung metastases compared with control mice that received no DCs or DCs loaded with liver lysate. In contrast, DCs coincubated with LLC lysate were indistinguishable from controls. Tumor lysate-electroloaded but not-coincubated DCs also primed syngeneic mouse splenocytes in vitro to produce interferon-gamma and, specifically, lyse tumor cells. The electroloaded DCs elicited specific T-cell responses with less lysate than the amount reported in standard coincubation procedures. This approach may be particularly useful when small amounts of tumor material are available.