Dendritic Cell Vaccine for Cancer Therapy

Dendritic cells (DCs) are antigen presenting cells (APCs) in mammalian immune system. They are also called as accessory cells. DCs are present in tissues that are in contact with the external environment which include skin, inner lining of nose, stomach, lungs and intestine, and found as immature state in blood. Major function of dendritic cell is to capture antigenic material and present it to the adaptive immune system. Dendritic cells will migrate to the lymph nodes after their activation, where they initiate and produce the adaptive immune responses by interacting with T cell and B cell. Dendritic cell include plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) conventional DCs (cDCs) and monocyte derived DCs. In the antigen specific cancer therapy, vaccination with attachment of the antigen together with Dendritic cells is used to produce the therapeutic T cells. DCs are having the ability to control both immune tolerance and immunity hence they are now at the centre of the immune system. Thus, DCs are an essential target to generate immunity against cancer and are generated by two approaches: Purification of immature DC precursor from peripheral blood and the in vitro differentiation of DCs from peripheral blood monocyte or CD34+ hemtopoietic progenitor cells. It was clear that the ex vivo delivery of purified tumour antigen to a defined population of APCs could result in an effective tumour vaccine. The clinical trials on dendritic cell vaccination under progress (eg; non-hodgkin's lymphoma, malignant melanoma, prostate cancer and multiple myeloma) and promises to improve methods for generating clinically effective anti-tumour immunity.