Third generation dendritic cell vaccines for tumor immunotherapy

This review summarizes our studies of the past several years on the development of third generation dendritic cell (DC) vaccines. These developments have implemented two major innovations in DC preparation: first, young DCs are prepared within 3 days and, second, the DCs are matured with the help of Toll-like receptor agonists, imbuing them with the capacity to produce bioactive IL-12 (p70). Based on phenotype, chemokine-directed migration, facility to process and present antigens, and stimulatory capacity to polarize Th1 responses in CD4⁺ T cells, induce antigen-specific CD8⁺ CTL and activate natural killer cells, these young mDCs display all the important properties needed for initiating good antitumor responses in a vaccine setting.