Dendritic cell vaccines: A potentially effective strategy for the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

The evolution of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) remains unpredictable, and there is an urgent need for new and effective vaccines to mitigate the pandemic at a time when traditional vaccines may not be sufficient to deal with SARS-CoV-2 variants everywhere. The dendritic cell (DC) vaccine, a novel cancer immunotherapy, has achieved good results in clinical trials alone or combination with other interventions. Due to its strong immune activation ability and the relevant targets found by existing studies, it is expected to become a new immunotherapy against SARS-CoV-2 infection. This article discusses the mechanism of dendritic cells in the immune system and its strategies in cancer treatment, as well as analyzes the role of dendritic cell vaccines in coping with SARS-CoV-2 infection, and compares the advantages and disadvantages of existing vaccine types, in order to explore the possibility of dendritic cell vaccines as an effective strategy against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.