Dendritic Cells (DCs) and Cancer Immunotherapy

Dear Colleagues,

Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent antigen-presenting cells (APC) that efficiently cross-present tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) and prime tumor antigen-specific CD8 T cells to control tumors. This specific functionality of DCs makes the DC-based vaccines one of the leading strategies for cancer immunotherapy. However, tumors often promote the tolerogenic function of host DCs to suppress anti-tumor immunity, limiting the success of the DC-based cancer vaccines.

There are several obstacles in the success of DC vaccines, i.e., tumor-mediated immunosuppression and the functional limitations of in vitro differentiated DCs. DC-derived exosomes have been considered as an alternative to cell-free therapeutic vaccines. In vivo DC-targeted vaccines and the use of naturally circulating blood DCs also offer promising alternatives to in vitro cultured DCs. There are critical gaps in our understanding of even the basic biology of these approaches, such as how DCexos and different subsets of DCs prime T cells, thus hindering their translation into clinical applications. Similarly, there is a need for a better understanding of how DCs interact with other DCs, B cells, and NK cells to fully unleash the potential of the DC-based vaccines.

This Special Issue on developing cancer vaccines welcomes new research articles and reviews on all aspects of dendritic cells and their roles in vaccine development and cancer immunotherapy.

Dr. Aimin Jiang
Guest Editor

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