[Expression of NY-ESO-1 gene in human esophageal carcinoma and its cloning].

Background & Objective: NY-ESO-1 is a tumor antigen from cDNA library of esophageal carcinoma. However, there was no report about its expression in the tissue of esophageal carcinoma. In the current study, the authors examined the frequency of the NY-ESO-1 gene expression in esophageal carcinoma in order to determine whether NY-ESO-1 antigen-based vaccine therapy be available for the patients with esophageal carcinoma.
Methods: Reverse transcriptase and polymerase chain reaction amplification techniques were utilized to assay 30 esophageal carcinoma tissues and the matched adjacent normal esophageal tissues for expression of NY-ESO-1 gene. And the cDNA sequence of NY-ESO-1 was cloned from esophageal carcinoma tissues by molecular cloning techniques.
Results: Out of 30 esophageal carcinoma tissues, 50% expressed NY-ESO-1 gene while no expressed in the matched adjacent normal esophageal tissues. The sequence of NY-ESO-1 cloned was identical to the sequence of that from GenBank.
Conclusions: NY-ESO-1 gene is expressed highly in esophageal carcinoma and NY-ESO-1 antigen can be recognized by cytolytic T lymphocytes when presented by HLA-class-I molecular.