Cancer Treatment Using Peptides: Current Therapies and Future Prospects

Figure 3

Peptide-based cancer vaccines: tumor cells express antigens known as tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) that can be recognized by the host’s immune system (a). These TAAs mixed with an adjuvant can be injected into cancer patients in an attempt to induce a systemic immune response (b). The antigen presenting cell (APC) presents the antigen to T cell ((c) and (d)), thereby the T cell is activated (e) which results in the destruction of the cancer cell (f).