Enhancement of Th1 immune response by CD8α+dendritic cells loaded with tumor extract enriched with heat shock proteins in tumor bearing mice

The discovery of dendritic cells (DCs) as professional antigen presenting cells has opened up new possibilities for their use in the development of tumor vaccines. We investigated the effect of the CD8 alpha(+) DCs loaded with heat-treated tumor lysate (HTL) as a vaccine in tumor immunotherapy. The HTL loaded CD8 alpha(+) DCs, TL loaded CD8 alpha+DCs and unloaded CD8 alpha+DCs were subcutaneously injected in the fibrosarcoma bearing mice. The spleniccyte proliferation and the shifting of Th1/Th2 response were measured. The results indicated a significant increase in the lymphocytes proliferation and the IFN-gamma production in the test group of mouse splenocytes. Acording to the results, IITL loaded CD8 alpha+DCs vaccine significantly decreased tumor growth and longer survival than the other immunized animals. These findings show that anti-tumor immune response against the fibrosarcoma can be induced by HTL loaded CD8 alpha+DCs and may provide a useful therapeutic model for development of approaches to tumor treatments.