Recently, dendritic cells- (DCs) based cancer vaccine incorporating different tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) to induce antitumor immune response against tumors have been tested in clinical trials worldwide. Dendritic cells are professional antigen presenting cells and key regulation of T-cell immunity. And they also play a pivotal role on regulation of tumor-specific immune response. The clinical trials of DCs-based vaccine have been first reported in patients with malignant melanoma in 1996. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved sipuleucel-T for the treatment of asymptomatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer in April 2010.
So far, DCs have been pulsed with synthetic peptides derived from the known TAAs, tumor cell lysates, and tumor RNA. It is necessary to identify the TAAs in these strategies. However, numerous tumors have not been yet identified TAAs. It is thought that the vaccination of fusion cells generated by fusing DCs and whole tumor cells is efficient to enhance antitumor immune response against these tumors.
This paper reviews our strategies employed in the field of tumor/DC fusions vaccine aimed at enhancing activation of antitumor immune response. And also, we summarized the current status of anti-cancer immunotherapy against the patient with head and neck cancer.
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