Dendritic Cells as Adjuvants for Immune-mediated Resistance to Tumors

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Abstract
Animal experiments as well as clinical experience, notably in melanoma, indicate that the immune system can recognize and kill tumor cells. In particular, CTLs recognize MHC class I–peptide complexes on the tumor cell surface, and the peptides are derived from nonmutated or mutated genes that can be primarily expressed in the tumors ((1)–(3)). Why then does the immune system fail to eradicate most antigenic cancers? One clue is the observation that CTLs for melanoma and other human tumors are not known to be expanded. For example, CTL precursors are not increased in melanoma patients, whereas humans who are infected with a virus like influenza frequently show expansions in virus-specific CTLp. Therefore tumors have antigens for T cells, but these do not appear to be immunogenic in vivo.