Chemokines as Cancer Vaccine Adjuvants

Abstract

We are witnessing a new era of immune-mediated cancer therapies and vaccine development. As the field of cancer vaccines advances into clinical trials, overcoming low immunogenicity is a limiting step in achieving full success of this therapeutic approach. Recent discoveries in the many biological roles of chemokines in tumor immunology allow their exploitation in enhancing recruitment of antigen presenting cells (APCs) and effector cells to appropriate anatomical sites. This knowledge, combined with advances in gene therapy and virology, allows researchers to employ chemokines as potential vaccine adjuvants. This review will focus on recent murine and human studies that use chemokines as therapeutic anti-cancer vaccine adjuvants.

Keywords

• chemokines
• dendritic cell
• immunotherapy
• cancer vaccine
• adjuvant