樹状細胞を用いたがん免疫療法(<特集>細胞治療とアフェレシス)
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概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
Dendritic cells (DCs) are the professional antigen-presenting cell of the immune system and have been used for several years as a vaccine in cancer patients with the goal of inducing a tumor-specific T-cell response. Since DCs constitute only about 0.2% of peripheral blood leukocytes, several ways to generate DCs from precursors have been investigated. Immature DCs cultured from monocytes by adding GM-CSF and IL-4 to the culture medium allow the generation of large quantities of clinical grade DCs. Further maturation may be achieved by adding cytokines such as TNFα, prostaglandin E2, IL-1β, IL-6 or monocyte-conditioned medium. Clinical studies have been done using these culture protocols and shown some efficacy for cancer immunotherapy. However, there still exist some concerns about dysfunction of DCs in cancer patients. New developments in DC therapy to be tested in clinical studies include the targeting of DCs in vivo, which may circumvent the problem of ex vivo manipulating and antigen-loading protocols. Furthermore, the depletion of CD 4+CD 25 +regulatory T cells, which have the ability to suppress T-cell-mediated immunity, may be a way of enhancing the potency of the DC vaccine-induced immune responses.
- 日本アフェレシス学会の論文
- 2007-05-31