Strategies to improve the immunogenicity of anticancer vaccines based on dendritic cell/malignant cell fusions.
The rationale for fusing dendritic cells (DCs) with whole tumor cells to generate anticancer vaccines resides in the fact that the former operate as potent antigen-presenting cells, whereas the latter express a constellation of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs). Although the administration of DC/malignant cell fusions to cancer patients is safe and this immunotherapeutic intervention triggers efficient tumor-specific T-cell responses in vitro, a limited number of objective clinical responses to DC/cancer cell fusions has been reported thus far. This review discusses novel approaches to improve the immunogenicity of DC/malignant cell fusions as anticancer vaccines.
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology; Department of Internal Medicine; The Jikei University School of Medicine; Tokyo, Japan ; Institute of Clinical Medicine and Research; The Jikei University School of Medicine; Tokyo, Japan ; Department of Oncology; Institute of DNA Medicine; The Jikei University School of Medicine; Tokyo, Japan.
Shigeo
S
Koido
Sadamu
S
Homma
Masato
M
Okamoto
Yoshihisa
Y
Namiki
Kazuki
K
Takakura
Kan
K
Uchiyama
Mikio
M
Kajihara
Seiji
S
Arihiro
Hiroo
H
Imazu
Hiroshi
H
Arakawa
Shin
S
Kan
Hideo
H
Komita
Yuko
Y
Kamata
Masaki
M
Ito
Toshifumi
T
Ohkusa
Jianlin
J
Gong
Hisao
H
Tajiri
cytotoxic T lymphocyte; dendritic cell; fusion; immunogenicity; whole tumor cell