Interest of Tumor-Specific CD4 T Helper 1 Cells for Therapeutic Anticancer Vaccine

Nowadays, immunotherapy represents one promising approach for cancer treatment. Recently, spectacular results of cancer immunotherapy clinical trials have confirmed the crucial role of immune system in cancer regression. Therapeutic cancer vaccine represents one widely used immunotherapy strategy to stimulate tumor specific T cell responses but clinical impact remains disappointing in targeting CD8 T cells. Although CD8 T cells have been initially considered to be the main protagonists, it is now clear that CD4 T cells also play a critical role in antitumor response. In this article, we discuss the role of tumor antigen-specific CD4 T cell responses and how we can target these cells to improve cancer vaccines.