Polyelectrolyte Microcapsules as Antigen Delivery Vehicles To Dendritic Cells: Uptake, Processing, and Cross-Presentation of Encapsulated Antigens

摘要

One of the major challenges for medicine today is undoubtedly the development of vaccines that can generate strong T-cell responses along with robust antibody-mediated immune responses. Induction of such strong T-cell responses is considered to be crucial to tackle insidious pathogens, such as HIV, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and the hepatitis C virus, but also could allow an immunotherapeutic treatment of cancer. The crucial cells in initiating T-cell responses are dendritic cells (DCs), which are specialized in internalizing antigens, processing them into small peptides, and presenting them in the cleft of their major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules to T cells.