Reply to Marchiò et al.: Antitumor immune regulation by angiostatic therapy

We read with great interest the letter by Marchiò et al. (1) on our recently published paper describing the rational design and testing of a vaccine directed against the major angiogenic growth factor VEGF (2). The letter raises the concern that the potential of the vaccine is limited because of the anaphylactic responses observed in the active vaccination experiments in mice and the incomplete tumor responses observed. The adverse effects observed were most likely because of the high antigen dose (10 mg/kg per immunization) used in the mouse studies. Rats treated with much lower doses (0.5 mg/kg per immunization) lacked such adverse responses. Similarly, extensive studies in cynomolgus monkeys demonstrated the …