title: Protective antitumor activity through dendritic cell immunization is mediated by NK cell as well as CTL activation.
abstract: Dendritic cells (DCs) are potent professional antigen-presenting cells (APC) capable of inducing the primary T cell response to antigen. Although tumor cells express target antigens, they are incapable of stimulating a tumor-specific immune response due to a defect in the costimulatory signal that is required for optimal activation of T cells. In this work, we describe a new approach using tumor-DC coculture to improve the antigen presenting capacity of tumor cells, which does not require a source of tumor-associated antigen. Immunization of a weakly immunogenic and progressive tumor cocultured with bone marrow-derived DCs generated an effective tumor vaccine. Immunization with the cocultured DCs was able to induce complete protective immunity against tumor challenges and was effective for the induction of tumor-specific CTL (cytotoxic T lymphocyte) activity. Furthermore, high NK cell activity was observed in mice in which tumors were rejected. In addition, immunization with tumor-pulsed DCs induced delayed tumor growth, but not tumor eradication in tumor-bearing mice. Our results demonstrate that coculture of DCs with tumors generated antitumor immunity due to the NK cell activation as well as tumor-specific T cell. This approach would be useful for designing tumor vaccines using DCs when the information about tumor antigens is limited.
authors.affiliation: Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Taejon.
authors.forename: K D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: J K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: I S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Choe
authors.forename: T H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: Y K
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Choe
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Lim
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000912:Antibodies, Neoplasm / Q000276:immunology*; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm / Q000276:immunology; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000276:immunology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D018920:Coculture Techniques; D003601:Cytotoxicity Tests, Immunologic; D003712:Dendrites / Q000276:immunology*; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000276:immunology*; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010641:Phenotype; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000276:immunology*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
chemical_list: D000912:Antibodies, Neoplasm; D000951:Antigens, Neoplasm; D007202:Indicators and Reagents