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Dendritic cells (DCs) play an important role in the induction of T cell responses. FcγRs, expressed on DCs, facilitate the uptake of complexed Ag, resulting in efficient MHC class I and MHC class II Ag presentation and DC maturation. In the present study, we show that prophylactic immunization with DCs loaded with Ag-IgG immune complexes (ICs) leads to efficient induction of tumor protection in mice. Therapeutic vaccinations strongly delay tumor growth or even prevent tumors from growing out. By depleting CD4+ and CD8+ cell populations before tumor challenge, we identify CD8+ cells as the main effector cells involved in tumor eradication. Importantly, we show that DCs that are preloaded in vitro with ICs are at least 1000-fold more potent than ICs injected directly into mice or DCs loaded with the same amount of noncomplexed protein. The contribution of individual FcγRs to Ag presentation, T cell response induction, and induction of tumor protection was assessed. We show that FcγRI and FcγRIII are capable of enhancing MHC class I-restricted Ag presentation to CD8+ T cells in vitro and that these activating FcγRs on DCs are required for efficient priming of Ag-specific CD8+ cells in vivo and induction of tumor protection. These findings show that targeting ICs via the activating FcγRs to DCs in vitro is superior to direct IC vaccination to induce protective tumor immunity in vivo.

Peptide-based vaccines aimed at the induction of effective T cell responses against established cancers have so far only met with limited clinical success and clearly need to be improved. In a preclinical model of human papillomavirus (HPV)16-induced cervical cancer we show that prime-boost vaccinations with the HPV16-derived 35 amino-acid long peptide E743–77, containing both a CTL epitope and a Th epitope, resulted in the induction of far more robust E7-specific CD8+ T cell responses than vaccinations with the minimal CTL epitope only. We demonstrate that two distinct mechanisms are responsible for this effect. First, vaccinations with the long peptide lead to the generation of E7-specific CD4+ Th cells. The level of the induced E7-specific CD8+ T cell response proved to be dependent on the interactions of these Th cells with professional APC. Second, we demonstrate that vaccination with the long peptide and dendritic cell-activating agents resulted in a superior induction of E7-specific CD8+ T cells, even when T cell help was excluded. This suggests that, due to its size, the long peptide was preferably endocytosed, processed, and presented by professional APCs. Moreover, the efficacy of this superior HPV-specific T cell induction was demonstrated in therapeutic prime-boost vaccinations in which the long peptide admixed with the dendritic cell-activating adjuvant oligodeoxynucleotide-CpG resulted in the eradication of large, established HPV16-expressing tumors. Because the vaccine types used in this study are easy to prepare under good manufacturing practice conditions and are safe to administer to humans, these data provide important information for future clinical trials.