Enhanced dendritic cell maturation by TNF-alpha or cytidine-phosphate-guanosine DNA drives T cell activation in vitro and therapeutic anti-tumor immune responses in vivo.

Abstract Dendritic cells (DC) manipulated ex vivo can induce tumor immunity in experimental murine tumor models. To improve DC-based tumor vaccination, we studied whether DC maturation affects the T cell-activating potential in vitro and the induction of tumor immunity in vivo. Maturation of murine bone marrow-derived DC was induced by GM-CSF plus IL-4 alone or by further addition of TNF-α or a cytidine-phosphate-guanosine (CpG)-containing oligonucleotide (ODN-1826), which mimics the immunostimulatory effect of bacterial DNA. Flow cytometric analysis of costimulatory molecules and MHC class II showed that DC maturation was stimulated most by ODN-1826, whereas TNF-α had an intermediate effec…