Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have successfully reprogrammed mouse and human skin cells into dendritic cells. The findings, which were published in the journal Science Immunology, could allow for development of novel cancer immunotherapies based on dendritic cells.
Dendritic cells intake foreign particles, such as bacteria, viruses or cancer cells and present them to T cells to mount an immune response. This has made them an attractive target for dendritic cell-based treatment for cancer patients, but development of such strategies has been hindered by cancer’s ability to cause dendritic cells to become lost or dysfunctional. The current study was designed to address this issue.
"This represents an excellent opportunity to merge the fields of cellular reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy. Generating dendritic cells employing direct cell reprogramming is very attractive from a therapeutic perspective: our studies may be useful in the clinic for generation of patient-specific dendritic cells", said Filipe Pereira, the leader of the research team that conducted the study.
The researchers believe the technique can be extended to a patient’s own skin cells. These reprogrammed dendritic cells would potentially be able to be injected straight into a tumor, forcing it to present their own tumor-specific antigens. Using reprogrammed cells from patients themselves decreases the probability of rejection.
The researchers have named the concept TrojanDC and have started a company together with Lund University to further develop this technique.