title: Innate immunity in breast carcinoma.
abstract: The innate immune response, which depends on so-called pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) is an evolutionarily old immune response able to elicit a defensive response against a vast array of pathogens. The purpose of this review is to revisit the role of innate immunity in breast carcinoma from the oldest therapeutic approach using bacillus Calmette-Guerin to the recent findings on the manipulation of the PRR pathways with unmethylated cytosine-guanosine dinucleotides (CpG motifs). Encouraging results have been obtained in prevention and local treatment of murine mammary tumors using tumor cells engineered to express stably mycobacterial antigens or directly using CpG-containing oligonucleotides. The experimental findings raise the possibility of successful anti-tumor management through stimulation of innate immunity in women at high risk of developing breast cancer and in breast cancer patients with reasonable immunological performance and low tumor load.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Targeting Unit, Department of Experimental Oncology, Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Via Venezian 1, 20133 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sfondrini
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Balsari
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ménard
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate