Mahaley Clinical Research Award: chemosensitization of glioma through dendritic cell vaccination.

A major reason chemotherapy fails in cancer treatment is drug resistance. New targets against chemotherapy resistance have been developed with the identification of molecular pathways in drug resistance. These targets are proteins that are highly expressed in human gliomas and are known to be tumor antigens. The immune system produces specialized white blood cells called dendritic cells (DCs). DCs are the most potent antigen-presenting cell of the immune system. DCs have demonstrated the ability to stimulate antibodies and cell-mediated immune responses against tumor antigens. Immunotherapy has emerged as a novel treatment strategy for gliomas with tumor antigens serving as the driving force. Clinical immunotherapy trials for glioma patients using vaccinations made of tumor antigens combined with dendritic cells ex vivo have shown promising results. DC vaccinations may increase sensitivity to chemotherapy, as demonstrated by a significant increase in 2-year survival rates in patients with malignant gliomas who received chemotherapy after immunotherapy (51). The use of DC vaccinations to increase sensitivity of tumor cells to chemotherapy can be rationalized as a novel strategy. Hence, this review will focus on the recent advances in the identification of tumor-associated antigens in gliomas, as well as their biological function related to drug resistance. The current research status and the future direction of DC vaccines to treat glioma in animal models and clinical trials will also be discussed.