Editorial

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen presenting cells, which play a pivotal role in antigen-specific (Ag-specific) T cell immunity. Malignancies have the capacity to inactivate DCs and effector T cells or to evade circulating antitumor immunity by expressing immune inhibitory molecules and/or secreting immunosuppressive cyto-kines. For this reason, ex-vivo-generated DCs [1] or in-vivo-DC-targeting [2] has been studied intensively over the past decade or development as a potential therapeutic cancer vaccine. Understanding how DCs induce, regulate, and maintain T cell immu-nity is essential for the design of novel cancer vaccines with improved clinical efficacy. Once activated, antigen-pulsed DCs are geared toward the launching of Ag-specific immunity, leading to T cell proliferation and differentiation into effector T cells. DCs are also important in triggering humoral immunity partly due to their capacity to di-rectly interact with B cells and to present unprocessed antigens. There are examples of DC-based tumor vaccines being used successfully in clinical practice. Sipuleucel-T, the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved DC vaccine (Dendreon Corp.) has been found to be somewhat effective in the treatment of human prostate cancer [3]. As of 2014, 289 clinical studies of DC-based cancer vaccines are registered and un-der investigation (2014