DNA vaccines have demonstrated antitumor efficacy in multiple preclinical models, but low immunogenicity has been observed in several human clinical trials. This has led to many approaches seeking to improve the immunogenicity of DNA vaccines. We previously reported that a DNA vaccine encoding the cancer-testis antigen SSX2, modified to encode altered epitopes with increased MHC class I affinit...

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a pivotal role in T cell-mediated immunity and have been shown to induce strong anti-tumor immune responses. As of yet, only a limited number of objective tumor regressions have been observed in clinical studies using a DC vaccine. Suppressor of cytokine signaling-1 (SOCS1) is a key negative regulator of the JAK/STAT signal pathway and plays an essential role in suppr...

Several studies have confirmed that certain stress proteins can function as potent vaccines against a specific cancer when purified from the same tumor. Recent studies of two long-recognized but unstudied stress proteins, heat shock protein (hsp) 110 and glucose-regulated protein (grp) 170, have shown them to be efficient peptide chain-binding proteins. The present investigation examines the va...

Antigen-specific DNA vaccine immunotherapy is an attractive approach for the treatment of cancer since it has the potency to specifically eradicate systemic tumors without damaging the normal cells. However, DNA vaccine shows insufficient immune response for antigen presenting cells and has minimal clinical efficacies. Cryoablation therapy is the therapeutic application of extreme cold for loca...

TGF-beta has been shown to play critical roles in immune suppression that occurs in cancer patients. TGF-beta has three isoforms, TGF-beta1, 2 and 3. We and others have reported that blockade of all three isoforms enhances tumor immunosurveillance and cancer vaccine efficacy in mouse tumor models. Among the three isoforms of TGFbeta, TGF-beta1 and TGF-beta2, especially TGF-beta1, have been wide...

Effective cancer treatment to prevent the tumor growth as well as to stop its recurrence is the dream of oncologists. Currently available therapeutic measures like, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, often suffer from severe toxicity and lack of specificity of the drug towards tumor cells. Another promising approach is the 'immunotherapy', in which either the immune system is activated by tumor vac...

Background Checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) have revolutionized the treatment of malignant melanoma. Although melanoma patients may experience deep and durable clinical responses to CPI treatment, majority develop disease progression requiring additional therapy. Combining CPIs with therapeutic cancer vaccines augment anti-tumor immune response thus improve outcomes. UV1 is a vaccine based on synth...

PURPOSE Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a minimally invasive energy delivery technique increasingly used for focal therapy to eradicate localized disease. RFA-induced tumor-cell necrosis generates an immunogenic source of tumor antigens known to induce antitumor immune responses. However, RFA-induced antitumor immunity is insufficient to control metastatic progression. We sought to characteriz...

Interleukin 17 (IL-17) is produced during infection with Listeria monocytogenes and is also an important regulator of tumor development with both pro- and anti-tumorigenic effects. αβ T cells and γδ T cells are among the principle producers of IL-17 in response to infection and other proinflammatory conditions. Listeria-based cancer immunotherapies induce IFNγ directed Th1 dependent tumor regre...

The human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) is expressed in more than 85% of tumor cells but is usually not found in normal cells, which makes hTERT as an ideal tumor-associate antigen (TAA) to develop potential vaccine specifically destroying cancers without impairing normal tissues in human cancer immunotherapy. Here are reviewed the fundamental advances of studies on immunogenicity of...