Engineering immunity: Modulating dendritic cell subsets and lymph node response to direct immune-polarization and vaccine efficacy

While successful vaccines have been developed against many pathogens, there are still many diseases and pathogenic infections that are highly evasive to current vaccination strategies. Thus, more sophisticated approaches to control the type and quality of vaccine-induced immune response must be developed. Dendritic cells (DCs) are the sentinels of the body and play a critical role in immune response generation and direction by bridging innate and adaptive immunity. It is now well recognized that DCs can be separated into many subgroups, each of which has a unique function. Better understanding of how various DC subsets, in lymphoid organs and in the periphery, can be targeted through controlled delivery; and how these subsets modulate and control the resulting immune response could greatly enhance our ability to develop new, effective vaccines against complex diseases. In this review, we provide an overview of DC subset biology and discuss current immunotherapeutic strategies that utilize DC targeting to modulate and control immune responses.