Towards the Development of Immunogenic Colon Cancer Cells for Immunotherapy

Colorectal cancer as opposed to melanoma or renal cancer is considered a nonimmunogenic type of malignancy. Nonimmunogenicity of tumor cells is believed to be the result of either a failure to induce resting pre-effector T lymphocytes to differentiate into effector cells or active mechanisms of immunosuppression which are exerted by tumor cells as soluble inhibitory activities. One must expect that both mechanisms play a role in the interaction between malignant tissue and the host immune system.