Tumor antigens presented by autologous dendritic cells (DC vaccine)

Tumor antigens presented by autologous dendritic cells represent a personalized immunotherapy approach where a patient's own immune cells are harnessed to fight cancer (Banchereau & Steinman, 1998). Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells that play a critical role in initiating the adaptive immune response by processing antigens and presenting them to T-cells via MHC molecules (Palucka & Banchereau, 2012). In this therapeutic strategy, DCs are harvested from the patient, matured and loaded ex vivo with specific tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) or whole tumor lysates, and then re-administered to the patient (Kantoff et al., 2010). Once back in the body, these primed DCs migrate to lymphoid organs where they present the processed antigens to naive T-cells, triggering the expansion of tumor-specific cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTLs) (NCI Drug Dictionary). While this approach has shown safety and the ability to induce immune responses, its clinical success has been limited by the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and the logistical challenges of autologous manufacturing (Anguille et al., 2014). The most prominent example of this technology is Sipuleucel-T, the first FDA-approved autologous cellular immunotherapy for prostate cancer (FDA, 2010).

Other names

Autologous dendritic cell vaccineDC-based immunotherapyAntigen-loaded dendritic cellsDendritic cell-based cancer vaccineAPC8015

Ex vivo loading of autologous dendritic cells with tumor-specific antigens followed by re-infusion to stimulate a systemic T-cell mediated anti-tumor immune response (Palucka & Banchereau, 2012).