Fig. 2

An immunological strategy for designing a vaccine is to use dendritic cells to trigger the immune response process towards cancer cells. Dendritic cells from peripheral blood are extracted through leukapheresis, then stimulated with tumor specific antigens, fusion proteins or pulsed with CTAs antigens or peptides mixes, derived from NY-ESO-1, MAGE-A1, PRAME, and finally reintroduced into the patient. DCs present the antigens through MHC class I and II to lymphocytes. Tumor antigens can be recognized by both CD8+ and CD4+ T lymphocytes, in the presence of costimulatory molecules necessary for their activation. Once T CD8+ lymphocytes have differentiated into effector CTLs, they can kill tumor cells even in the absence of co-stimulation or contribution from helper T cells