Dendritic cell-based cancer immunotherapy: the stagnant approach and a theoretical solution

Anticancer dendritic cells (DC) therapy currently uses in vitro propagation of the patient's DC and pulsing with tumor antigens. However, clinical achievements are far from desirable. Here, I suggest that the lack of anticipated responses could be because cancer cells continuously mutate, whereas the population of tumor antigens from the excised tumor is genetically static, and because there is an absence of biologic mechanisms to facilitate intratumoral DC retention, which is needed for DC pulsing. I hypothesize that stable tumor transfection with fetal liver tyrosine kinase 3 ligand (Flt3-L) and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) DNAs will induce homing, propagation and maturation of intratumoral DC. This must be followed by drug-induced apoptosis of tumor cells, to ensure the release of tumor antigens for DC pulsing. Then, regardless of any mutation of tumor cells, they would always incite DC propagation and maturation, pulsing and antitumor immunity.