Dendritic-tumor fusion cells in cancer immunotherapy

A promising area of clinical investigation is the use of cancer immunotherapy to treat cancer patients. Dendritic cells (DCs) operate as professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and play a critical role in the induction of antitumor immune responses. Thus, DC-based cancer immunotherapy represents a powerful strategy. One DC-based cancer immunotherapy strategy that has been investigated is the administration of fusion cells generated with DCs and whole tumor cells (DC-tumor fusion cells). The DC-tumor fusion cells can process a broad array of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs), including unidentified molecules, and present them through major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and II pathways in the context of co-stimulatory signals. Improving the therapeutic efficacy of DC-tumor fusion cell-based cancer immunotherapy requires increased immunogenicity of DCs and whole tumor cells. We discuss the potential ability of DC-tumor fusion cells to activate antigen-specific T cells and strategies to improve the immunogenicity of DC-tumor fusion cells as anticancer vaccines.