title: Natural killer cells: the secret weapon in dendritic cell vaccination strategies.
abstract: In cancer therapy, dendritic cell (DC) vaccination is still being explored. Clinical responses, however, are diverse and there is a lack of immunologic readout systems that correspond with clinical outcome. Only in the minority of patients, T-cell responses correlate with clinical outcome, indicating that other immune cells also gain anticancer activity. We still have limited knowledge of the effect of DC vaccination on different immune effector cells. However, it has been shown that bidirectional cross-talk between natural killer (NK) cells and DCs is responsible for enhanced activation of both cell types and increases their antitumor activity. In this review, we postulate the possibility that NK cells are the secret weapons in DC vaccination and studying their behavior together with T-cell activation in vaccinated individuals might predict clinical outcome.
authors.affiliation: Authors' Affiliations: Departments of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology and Transplantation Immunology, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Catharina H M J
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Van Elssen
authors.forename: Tammy
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Oth
authors.forename: Wilfred T V
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Germeraad
authors.forename: Gerard M J
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Bos
authors.forename: Joris
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vanderlocht
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019496:Cancer Vaccines / Q000276:immunology; D002450:Cell Communication / Q000276:immunology; D003602:Cytotoxicity, Immunologic; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation / Q000276:immunology; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000628:therapy*
chemical_list: D019496:Cancer Vaccines