Therapeutic Cancer Vaccination
3.2. How do the therapeutic cancer vaccines work?
Therapeutic vaccines do not directly kill cancer cells. Their aim is to activate and instruct the dendritic cells, by making them capable of inducing a specific anti-tumour immune response. In particular, the aim of therapeutic cancer vaccination is to activate cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), which are the main soldiers of the immune system against cancer cells.
3.2.1 What are dendritic cells and why are they important?
Dendritic cells are a family of immune cells, distributed in various tissues and organs and constantly circulating in peripheral blood in very small numbers. They act as sentinels, constantly scanning their environment for any threats.
Dendritic cells are conducting the specific …show more content…
However, cancer cells are also clever enough, and, particularly due to accumulated genetic mutations, they excel in adapting to harsh conditions. The constant immune system assault is highly unfavourable factor for cancer cells. Therefore, cancer cells by various means try to evade the immune system, which seeks to destroy them or weaken their activity. The more malignant and aggressive tumor cells are (this depends on the set of mutations within the cell genome), the more abilities it has to fight the immune system.
Keeping in mind the extremely important role of the dendritic cells, there is no surprise that cancer cells also aim to target dendritic cells and disrupt their activity. Cancer cells do it in a variety of ways, e.g. try to mislead the dendritic cells by ‘hiding’ their mutated surface molecules (tumour antigens), which makes cancer cells invisible to the immune system. Another powerful cancer weapons against dendritic cells is secretion of various substances that prevent their maturation. Consequently, when immature dendritic cell presents antigen fot T lymphocyte, the latter dies, becomes incapable or even worse - turns it into suppressive T lymphocyte (a traitor), which not only does not destroy tumour cells but also suppresses the activity of other anti-tumour immune response components (loyal soldiers of the immune
Therapeutic vaccines do not directly kill cancer cells. Their aim is to activate and instruct the dendritic cells, by making them capable of inducing a specific anti-tumour immune response. In particular, the aim of therapeutic cancer vaccination is to activate cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), which are the main soldiers of the immune system against cancer cells.
3.2.1 What are dendritic cells and why are they important?
Dendritic cells are a family of immune cells, distributed in various tissues and organs and constantly circulating in peripheral blood in very small numbers. They act as sentinels, constantly scanning their environment for any threats.
Dendritic cells are conducting the specific …show more content…
However, cancer cells are also clever enough, and, particularly due to accumulated genetic mutations, they excel in adapting to harsh conditions. The constant immune system assault is highly unfavourable factor for cancer cells. Therefore, cancer cells by various means try to evade the immune system, which seeks to destroy them or weaken their activity. The more malignant and aggressive tumor cells are (this depends on the set of mutations within the cell genome), the more abilities it has to fight the immune system.
Keeping in mind the extremely important role of the dendritic cells, there is no surprise that cancer cells also aim to target dendritic cells and disrupt their activity. Cancer cells do it in a variety of ways, e.g. try to mislead the dendritic cells by ‘hiding’ their mutated surface molecules (tumour antigens), which makes cancer cells invisible to the immune system. Another powerful cancer weapons against dendritic cells is secretion of various substances that prevent their maturation. Consequently, when immature dendritic cell presents antigen fot T lymphocyte, the latter dies, becomes incapable or even worse - turns it into suppressive T lymphocyte (a traitor), which not only does not destroy tumour cells but also suppresses the activity of other anti-tumour immune response components (loyal soldiers of the immune