Sarcosine promotes trafficking of dendritic cells and improves efficacy of anti-tumor dendritic cell vaccines via CXC chemokine family signaling.

Background: Dendritic cell (DC) vaccine efficacy is directly related to the efficiency of DC migration to the lymph node after delivery to the patient. We discovered that a naturally occurring metabolite, sarcosine, increases DC migration in human and murine cells resulting in significantly improved anti-tumor efficacy. We hypothesized that sarcosine induced cell migration was due to chemokine signaling.