Engineering immunity: Modulating dendritic cell subsets and lymph node response to direct immune-polarization and vaccine efficacy.
While successful vaccines have been developed against many pathogens, there are still many diseases and pathogenic infections that are highly evasive to current vaccination strategies. Thus, more sophisticated approaches to control the type and quality of vaccine-induced immune response must be developed. Dendritic cells (DCs) are the sentinels of the body and play a critical role in immune response generation and direction by bridging innate and adaptive immunity. It is now well recognized that DCs can be separated into many subgroups, each of which has a unique function. Better understanding of how various DC subsets, in lymphoid organs and in the periphery, can be targeted through controlled delivery; and how these subsets modulate and control the resulting immune response could greatly enhance our ability to develop new, effective vaccines against complex diseases. In this review, we provide an overview of DC subset biology and discuss current immunotherapeutic strategies that utilize DC targeting to modulate and control immune responses.
The Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and The Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech, The Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States.
Jardin
J
Leleux
The Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and The Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech, The Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States.
Alexandra
A
Atalis
The Wallace H. Coulter Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and The Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech, The Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, United States. Electronic address: krish.roy@gatech.edu.
Krishnendu
K
Roy
D000818:Animals; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000276:immunology; D008264:Macrophages / Q000276:immunology; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy; D014612:Vaccines / Q000276:immunology*
D014612:Vaccines
DC subsets; Dendritic cells; Drug delivery; Immunomodulation; Immunotherapy; Lymph node; Vaccines