Using high-throughput screening of chemical libraries to identify factors involved in cross-presentation
12 / 2009 - unknown
Anti-tumoral and anti-viral immune responses display a similar achilles heel: they lack an efficient cytotoxic CD8+ T cell response, and this can be fatal in many situations. Such an immune response requires the presentation of tumor or viral antigen in the context of Major Histocompatibility Class I by dendritic cells (DCs) to CD8+ T cells through a specialised process called cross-presentation. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this process remain poorly characterized. A better understanding of cross-presentation and the improvement of its efficiency is therefore an issue on the forefront of immunological and pharmaceutical research. The aim of this study is to provide a better knowledge of the process of crosspresentation and to potentially design new effective anti-tumoral and viral immunotherapies by targeting this process. To this end, I will screen the effects of a collection of approx 4,000 drugs on cross-presentation by DCs. Data from these studies will provide insight into the basic mechanisms of cross-presentation, and will potentially contribute to the discovery of new drugs able to regulate this process.