title: Requirement of tumor-associated antigen-specific CD4+ T cells for an efficient dendritic cell vaccine in antitumor immunotherapy.
abstract: Evaluation of: Aarntzen EH, De Vries IJ, Lesterhuis WJ et al. Targeting CD4(+) T-helper cells improves the induction of antitumor responses in dendritic cell-based vaccination. Cancer Res. 73(1), 19-29 (2012). The induction of antitumor immune responses in patients is one of the most sought-after goals in cancer treatment. The proposed clinical approach is to use autologous mature dendritic cells (DCs) loaded with class I peptides from tumor-associated antigens (TAAs), as DCs are the most efficient immune cells to generate strong and specific cytotoxic CD8(+) T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses. To optimize DC-based cancer vaccines, Aarntzen et al. evaluated the necessity to stimulate TAA-specific CD4(+) T-helper cells to reinforce antitumor CTL responses. They demonstrated that intranodal injection of DCs pulsed with class I- and II-restricted TAA epitopes increases TAA-specific CTL responses and induces better clinical responses in stage III/IV melanoma patients than the use of DCs pulsed with class I-restricted TAA epitopes alone. This study highlights the interest of concomitant stimulation of TAA-specific CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells for DC-based antitumor immunotherapy.
authors.affiliation: INSERM, UMR1064, F-44000, France.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Fonteneau
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grégoire
mesh_terms: D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000276:immunology* / Q000637:transplantation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008545:Melanoma / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy*; D006377:T-Lymphocytes, Helper-Inducer / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D019496:Cancer Vaccines