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Dendritic Cells

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Immunotherapy of Melanoma

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Abstract

Dendritic cells are the professional antigen presenting cells that have the ability to capture the antigen from foreign as well as abnormal host cells, process the antigens and present the antigens on MHC class I/II to T-cells along with appropriate costimulatory signals. They are the unique type of antigen presenting cells that can activate both CD8+ as well as CD4+ T-cells. The present chapter describes the significance of DCs in immune response. The chapter begins with a brief note on discovery of DCs by noted immunologist Dr. Ralph Steinmann and his contributions to development of DC-based vaccines. Next, the different subtypes of DCs, classified based on their origin, location, phenotype and function are presented and then the main functions of DCs are listed. While discussing the functions of DCs in detail, various antigen processing mechanisms including the ‘classical’ MHC class I and class II pathways as well as the CD1 pathway and the significance of costimulation in the activation of T-cells are described. Role of DCs and the DC-secreted cytokines in induction of T-cell differentiation into different types of effector T-cells are discussed. The interaction between DCs and B-cells including antigen presentation, activation and induction of B-cell differentiation are then described in the chapter, followed by discussion on significance of DCs in immune tolerance. Finally, the role of DCs in tumor microenvironment is discussed with details on the mechanisms employed by tumor cells to inhibit DC-mediated anti-tumor immunity.

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  1. Faculty of Medicine, Department of Dermatology and Skin Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Anand Rotte & Madhuri Bhandaru

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Rotte, A., Bhandaru, M. (2016). Dendritic Cells. In: Immunotherapy of Melanoma. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48066-4_6

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