The study progress in dendritic cell homing to draining lymph nodes

Dendritic cells (DCs), the professional antigen presenting cells (APCs), play critical roles in triggering immunity to many different types of antigens including tumors. Tumor associated antigen-pulsed DCs have been explored in anti-tumor immunotherapy in clinical practices. Homing of the transferred exoge-nous DCs to the draining lymph nodes (DLN) is one of the pivotal steps in inducing anti-tumor immunity. Numbers of migrated DCs to the DLN correlated to the magnitude of immune responses. Understanding the mechanisms of DC homing to DLN is helpful to increase the efficiency of DC-basod vaccination against tumors. DC migration to DLN is orchestrated by a complex interplay between chemokines and their receptors, adhesion molecules, as well as matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and lipid mediators, in which CCR7 and its ligands CCL19 and CCL21 are the most studiod. Key words: Dendritic cells;  Homing to lymph nodes;  Chemokines;  Chemokine receptors