Notably, loading of DCs with heat-stressed tumour cells has been shown to permit enhanced cross-priming, most likely due to concomitant upregulation of heat-shock proteins and tumour antigen expression [40]. Importantly, loading with heat-stressed tumour cells during DC maturation in our present study did not negatively affect the production of CXCR3 ligands or recruitment of NK and NKT cells, nor did it negatively affect production of CCL3, CCL4 or IL-12p70 upon subsequent CD40 ligation. We therefore believe that this could be of potential relevance in vaccination strategies for patients with CLL where tumour antigens still are poorly

identified. Despite enriching monocytes by a three-step protocol, selleckchem we were unable to achieve desired purity in some cases. With contaminating cells of up to 30%, most being CD19+ CLL cells, the risk of tumour cells affecting DC function and yield must be taken into account. Indeed, when autologous DCs are developed from monocytes in patients with progressive disease, DC dysfunction has been observed, most probably due to negative CHIR-99021 ic50 influence from circulating CLL cells [12, 41]. Yet, in the present study, the function of αDC1 was not seemingly affected by contaminating CLL cells, indicating that this maturation

cocktail could overcome the possible suppressive effect from such cells and thus be effective even in a clinical setting. On the other hand, as all patients in our study were non-progressive and previously untreated, GNE-0877 it is conceivable that the negative influence of the CLL cells is much less than in patients with progressive disease. Indeed, patients with advanced CLL have an upregulated expression of immunosuppressive cytokines, including IL-10 and TGF-β, which suppresses Th1 cell immune responses [42]. In support of this, we have previously

shown that patients with advanced disease had higher expression of inhibitory killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) on CD8+ cells than patients with non-progressive disease, indicating that also potential tumour-reactive CTL is inhibited by tumour-related causes in patients with progressive disease [43]. Accordingly, one possible interpretation could be that for DC-based immunotherapy to be successful, it should reasonably be administered to patients with non-progressive disease, before immunosuppression caused both by the disease itself and possibly by chemotherapy, makes this approach impossible. In conclusion, we found that tumour-loaded αDC1 derived from patients with CLL produced substantially higher levels of NK/NKT/CD8+ cell-recruiting chemokines and that they were superior to PGE2DC in the recruitment of NK and NKT cells. Instead, PGE2DCs produced higher levels of Th2- and Treg-attracting chemokines.