Current methods for loading dendritic cells with tumor antigen for the induction of antitumor immunity

The immunotherapy of cancer is predicated on the belief that it is possible to generate a clinically meaningful antitumor response that provides patient benefit, such as improvement in the time to progression or survival. Indeed, immunotherapeutics with dendritic cells (DC) as antigen-presenting delivery vehicles for cell-based vaccines have already improved patient outcome against a wide range of tumor types (1-9). This approach stimulates the patient's own antitumor immunity through the induction or enhancement of T-cell immunity. It is generally believed that the activity of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), the cells directly responsible for killing the tumor cells in vivo, are directed by DC. Therefore, the goal of many current designs for DC-based vaccines is to induce strong tumor-specific CTL responses in patients with cancer. In practice, most studies for DC-based cancer vaccine development have focused on the development of methods that can effectively deliver exogenous tumor antigens to DC for cross-priming of CD8(+) T cells through the endogenous MHC class I processing and presentation pathway (10). To date, many methods have been developed or evaluated for the delivery of defined and undefined tumor antigens to DC. This review provides a brief summary on these methods, the techniques used in these methods, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each method.