Developing dendritic cell polynucleotide vaccination for prostate cancer immunotherapy

Immunotherapy has been successfully used to treat some human malignancies, principally melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. Genetic-based cancer immunot herapies were proposed which prime T lymphocyte recognition of unique neo-a ntigens arising from specific mutations. Genetic immunization (polynucleoti de vaccination, DNA vaccines) is a process whereby gene therapy methods are used to create vaccines and immunotherapies. Recent findings indicate that genetic immunization works indirectly via a bone marrow derived cell. prob ably a type of dendritic antigen presenting cell (APC). Direct targeting of genetic vaccines to these cells may provide an efficient method for stimul ating cellular and humoral immune responses to infectious agents and tumor antigens. Initial studies have provided monocytic-derived dendritic cell (D C) isolation and culture techniques, simple methods for delivering genes in to these cells, and have also uncovered potential obstacles to effective ca ncer immunotherapy which may restrict the utility of this paradigm to a sub set of patients. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.