Antigen targeting to dendritic cells for cancer immunotherapy

Dendritic cells (DC) are antigen presenting cells that play a crucial role in initiating anti-tumor immunity. DC capture antigens, process them, and migrate to the draining lymph nodes where they can induce an antigen-specific T cell response. A promising strategy to induce a potent, specific, and lasting anti-tumor response is to target tumor antigens to DC in vivo. This represents a clinically generally applicable and cost-effective approach to DC-based vaccination against cancer. Here, an overview is provided of the different delivery vehicles (e.g., viruses, proteins, liposomes, and nanobodies) that are currently being explored for the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines and considerations for their successful application as well as future developments.