[Dendritic cells in cancer immunotherapy]

Since the beginning of the 20th century, biomedical scientists have tried to take advantage of the natural anti-cancer activities of the immune system. However, all the scientific and medical efforts dedicated to this have not resulted in the expected success. In fact, classical antineoplastic treatments such as surgery, radio and chemotherapy are still first line treatments. Even so, there is a quantity of experimental evidence demonstrating that cancer cells are immunogenic. However, the effective activation of anti-cancer T cell responses closely depends on an efficient antigen presentation carried out by professional antigen presenting cells such as DC. Although there are a number of strategies to strengthen antigen presentation by DC, anti-cancer immunotherapy is not as effective as we would expect according to preclinical data accumulated in recent decades. We do not aim to make an exhaustive review of DC immunotherapy here, which is an extensive research subject already dealt with in many specialised reviews. Instead, we present the experimental approaches undertaken by our group over the last decade, by modifying DC to improve their anti-tumour capacities.