Development of artificial receptor-based amplification system of dendritic cells for cancer therapy

由于树突状细胞是一种强大的抗原提呈细胞，能够有效地激活抗原特异性的细胞毒性T细胞，因此在癌症治疗中具有广阔的应用前景。然而，高效扩增树突状细胞的方法仍有待建立。在这项研究中，一种与天然细胞因子或生长因子截然不同的人工细胞因子受体识别抗原在作为树突状细胞来源的造血干细胞中表达。因此，我们成功地证明了通过抗原诱导人工细胞因子受体的激活来扩增造血干细胞。

Since dendritic cells are potent antigen-presenting cells that can efficiently activate antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells, they are promising for application to cancer therapy. However, the method to efficiently expand dendritic cells has remained to be established. In this study, an artificial cytokine receptor recognizing antigen quite different from natural cytokines or growth factors was expressed in a hematopoietic stem cell, which is a source of dendritic cells. Consequently, we successfully demonstrated the expansion of hematopoietic stem cells via antigen-induced activation of the artificial cytokine receptor.