Dendritic Cell Therapy

Dendritic cells and T cells play a role in your immune response. Dendritic cells are antigen presenting cells, meaning an engulfed an invading organism has been broken up and the pieces are now being displayed on the dendritic cell’s outer membrane. Different T cells become activated depending on whether an MHC class 1 or 2 molecule is being presented on an antigen presenting cell. If an MHC class 1 molecule is present than cytotoxic T cells become activated, and if a MHC class 2 molecule is presented than helper T cells become activated. Both play an important role in the immune response. There are numerous advancements being made with T cell and dendritic cell therapy, many seeming to target tumors.

Enhancements to dendritic cells are being used as a treatment method for tumors. Personalized dendritic cell vaccines are being created to treat a large variety of tumors. Since dendritic cells are good at being antigen presenting cells and play critical roles in inducing both the innate and adaptive immune response, they can lead to inducing immunity against tumors. So far, this dendritic cell therapy hasn’t been successful at inducing the response researchers were hoping for. Recent data has suggested combining the dendritic cell based vaccine with other cancer therapies may fully activate the vaccine, improving patient survival. I am certain more research is currently underway and am looking forward to seeing what dendritic cell vaccines can do to help cancer patients in the future.

These dendritic cell vaccines are attempting to elicit cellular immunity. The goal in these vaccines is to effectively present cancer antigens to T cells. Since dendritic cells are great at being antigen presenting cells, the hope is that they will present cancerous antigens to T cells in order for the immune response to be activated against them. These vaccines are specifically being used in hopes to treat castration-resistant prostate cancer. Antigen loaded dendritic cells are being given to patients in order to induce tumor associated T cell responses. Different types of dendritic cells were tested and the outcomes look promising. Continuous research is needed in order to effectively present tumor antigens on T cells, but I am hopeful there will be more advancements to come.