© 2012 Landes Bioscience. Do not distribute.

During the last two decades, a number of approaches for the activation of the immune system against cancer has been developed. These include highly specific interventions, such as monoclonal antibodies, vaccines and cell-based therapies, as well as relatively unselective strategies, such as the systemic administration of adjuvants and immunomodulatory cytokines. Cytokines constitute a huge group of proteins that, taken together, regulate not only virtually all the aspects of innate and cognate immunity, but also several other cellular and organismal functions. Cytokines operate via specific transmembrane receptors that are expressed on the plasma membrane of target cells and, depending on multiple variables, can engage autocrine, paracrine or endocrine signaling pathways. Perhaps, the most appropriate term for defining the cytokine network is “pleiotropic”: cytokines are produce