Dendritic cells pulsed with glioma lysates induce immunity against syngeneic intracranial gliomas and increase survival of tumor-bearing mice

In recent years, the use of dendritic cells ( DC), the most powerful antigen presenting cells, has been proposed for the creation of vaccines against gliomas 1. This approach has been demonstrated to be safe and non-toxic in phase I or I-II trials (2,3)(2-5). Immunotherapy plays a central role in the search for new treatments for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). In particular, several phase I studies have been performed using DC pulsed by GBM proteins as a vaccine for patients with relapsing GBM. The studies demonstrated that DC vaccination is safe and may produce a significant increase in overall survival. As the first step in the preparation of appropriate conditions for a clinical evaluation in Italy, we have performed pre-clinical experiments on immune-competent mice injected intra-cerebrally with syngeneic GL261GBM cells and treated subcutaneously and intra-tumorally with DC loaded with a GL261 homogenate. These results show that vaccination with DC pulsed with a tumor lysate increases considerably survival in mice bearing intracranial glioblastomas and supports the development of DC-based clinical trials for patients with glioblastomas that do not respond to standard therapies.