Immunotherapeutics & vaccine adjuvants for cancer

Abstract

It is well established that innate immune responses not only mediate immunity to infection, but also promotes adaptive immunity to pathogens and tumours. Dendritic cells (DC) play a critical role as antigen presenting cells for naive T cells and also in directing adaptive immune responses, and thus have considerable potential for use in cell based vaccines to prime anti-tumour effector T cells. Indeed, the recently approved DC-based cancer vaccine, Provenge®, has modest therapeutic efficacy against prostate cancer. Pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) such as nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD) agonists and toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists or recombinant cytokines are powerful mediators of innate and consequently adaptive immunity and are thus attractive candidates for use as immunotherapeutics or adjuvants for cancer vaccines. Indeed, the TLR7/8 agonist, imiquimod, is already in clinical use as a topical application for basal cell carcinoma.