Understanding immunotherapy and chemotherapy : new way of antigen cross-presentation and novel anti-tumor effects by doxorubicin

Abstract

Immunotherapy and chemotherapy are major strategies in current cancer treatments. In the first half of this thesis, a new way of antigen cross-presentation from apoptotic cells to APCs, mediated by gap junctions, is described. And potential anti-tumor applications of gap junction mediated antigen cross-presentation are discussed in the context of the current knowledge. In the second half of this thesis, an unexpected novel mechanism of action__selective induction of histone eviction__is described, which could explain the long standing clinical observation that anthracycline members, like doxorubicin, daunorubicin and aclarubicin, are efficient but with long term side-effects such as cardiotoxicity