Dendritic Cells and Interleukin 12 as Adjuvants for Tumor-Specific Vaccines

Abstract

The demonstration of autologous CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) with specificity for class I MHC-restricted tumor antigens is a cornerstone in the field of tumor immunology and immunotherapy, raising the critical issue of developing effective means of increasing the frequency of tumor-specific CTL and translating a trace repertoire into effective immune responses¹. Dendritic cells (DC) are unmatched in their ability to present antigen to naive T cells in a way that activates the immune response². Recent work in our laboratory has begun to address this challenge by using DC to elicit antigen-specific CD8 cell responses in vivo in mice^3–5. In particular, our model system makes use of DC pulsed in vitro with a well-characterized peptide related to the tumor rejection antigen P815AB⁶ of mastocytoma P815, and the tumor peptide-loaded DC are transferred into recipient mice, that are monitored for development of CD8 cell reactivity by a skin test assay.