Dendritic cell vaccine of gliomas: challenges from bench to bed

Ye Zheng; Xiaoyu Ma; Shouchang Feng; Hongtao Zhu; Xin Chen; Xingjiang Yu; Kai Shu; Suojun Zhang

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2023.1259562

Dendritic cell vaccine of gliomas: challenges from bench to bed

Front Immunol. 2023 Sep 14:14:1259562. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1259562. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Ye Zheng¹, Xiaoyu Ma¹, Shouchang Feng¹, Hongtao Zhu¹, Xin Chen², Xingjiang Yu³, Kai Shu¹, Suojun Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
² Department of Oncology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
³ Department of Histology and Embryology, School of Basic Medicine, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Gliomas account for the majority of brain malignant tumors. As the most malignant subtype of glioma, glioblastoma (GBM) is barely effectively treated by traditional therapies (surgery combined with radiochemotherapy), resulting in poor prognosis. Meanwhile, due to its "cold tumor" phenotype, GBM fails to respond to multiple immunotherapies. As its capacity to prime T cell response, dendritic cells (DCs) are essential to anti-tumor immunity. In recent years, as a therapeutic method, dendritic cell vaccine (DCV) has been immensely developed. However, there have long been obstacles that limit the use of DCV yet to be tackled. As is shown in the following review, the role of DCs in anti-tumor immunity and the inhibitory effects of tumor microenvironment (TME) on DCs are described, the previous clinical trials of DCV in the treatment of GBM are summarized, and the challenges and possible development directions of DCV are analyzed.

Keywords: dendritic cell; dendritic cell vaccine; glioma; glioma microenvironment; immunotherapy.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Brain Neoplasms*
Cancer Vaccines* / therapeutic use
Dendritic Cells
Glioblastoma*
Glioma*
Humans
Tumor Microenvironment

Substances

Cancer Vaccines

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82072805) and Hubei Natural Science Foundation (2020CFB678).