heat-treated tumor lysate loaded lymphoide dendritic cells: evaluation of cytotoxic effect in the tumor bearing mice

objective: dendritic cells (dcs) are essential for the activation and polarization of t cells during an adaptive immune response. in this research we investigated the effect of the lymphoide dcs pulsed with heat-treated tumor lysate (htl) as a vaccine in tumor immunotherapy. materials and methods: the balb/c mice were injected subcutaneously in the right flank with wehi-164 fibrosarcoma cells 10 days before immunization with the dcs. then hsp70 expression in the htl was detected by using western blot analysis. the mice lymphoide dcs subset were isolated by magnetic cell sorting (macs), then the htl pulsed lymphoide dcs, tl pulsed lymphoide dcs and unpulsed lymphoide dcs were subcutaneously injected. tumor growth rate, survival, cytotoxic assay measured. results: the results showed that htl-lymphoide dcs vaccine significantly induced the tumor growth suppression and longer survival than the other immunized mice. immunotherapy with htl-lymphoide dcs led to a significant increase in the activity of cytotoxic t cells in the tumor tissue. conclusion: the current study suggests that specific anti-tumor immune responses against the fibrosarcoma can be induced by htl-lymphoide dcs and may provide a useful therapeutic approach for cancer treatment.