Whole Tumor Antigen Vaccines: Where Are We?
With its vast amount of uncharacterized and characterized T cell epitopes available for activating CD4⁺ T helper and CD8⁺ cytotoxic lymphocytes simultaneously, whole tumor antigen represents an attractive alternative source of antigens as compared to tumor-derived peptides and full-length recombinant tumor proteins for dendritic cell (DC)-based immunotherapy. Unlike defined tumor-derived peptides and proteins, whole tumor lysate therapy is applicable to all patients regardless of their HLA type. DCs are essentially the master regulators of immune response, and are the most potent antigen-presenting cell population for priming and activating naïve T cells to target tumors. Because of these unique properties, numerous DC-based immunotherapies have been initiated in the clinics. In this review, we describe the different types of whole tumor antigens that we could use to pulse DCs ex vivo and in vivo. We also discuss the different routes of delivering whole tumor antigens to DCs in vivo and activating them with toll-like receptor agonists.
Ovarian Cancer Research Center, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. cheryl_chiang@yahoo.com.
Cheryl Lai-Lai
CL
Chiang
Ovarian Cancer Research Center, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. George.coukos@chuv.ch.|Ludwig Cancer Center, University of Lausanne, Lausanne 1011, Switzerland. George.coukos@chuv.ch.
George
G
Coukos
Ovarian Cancer Research Center, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. lana.kandalaft@chuv.ch.|Center of Experimental Therapeutics, Ludwig Cancer Center, University of Lausanne, Lausanne 1011, Switzerland. lana.kandalaft@chuv.ch.
Lana E
LE
Kandalaft
dendritic cells; personalized vaccines; vaccines; whole tumor