Dendritic cell-based interventions for cancer therapy

*Correspondence to: Guido Kroemer and Lorenzo Galluzzi; Email: kroemer@orange.fr and deadoc@vodafone.it Submitted: 07/15/13; Accepted: 07/16/13 Citation: Vacchelli E, Vitale I, Eggermont A, Fridman WH, Fučíková J, Cremer I, et al. Trial Watch: Dendritic cell-based interventions for cancer therapy. OncoImmunology 2013; 2:e25771; http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/ Dendritic cells (DCs) occupy a privileged position at the interface between innate and adaptive immunity, orchestrating a large panel of responses to both physiological and pathological cues. In particular, whereas the presentation of antigens by immature DCs generally results in the development of immunological tolerance, mature DCs are capable of priming robust, and hence therapeutically relevant, adaptive immune responses. In line with this notion, functional defects in the DC compartment have been shown to etiologically contribute to pathological conditions including (but perhaps not limited to) infectious diseases, allergic and autoimmune disorders, graft rejection and cancer. Thus, the possibility of harnessing the elevated immunological potential of DCs for anticancer therapy has attracted considerable interest from both researchers and clinicians over the last decade. Alongside, several methods have been developed not only to isolate DCs from cancer patients, expand them, load them with tumorassociated antigens and hence generate highly immunogenic Trial Watch Dendritic cell-based interventions for cancer therapy