Cancer is still an unsolved puzzle and a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the world. Today, about one in every thousand people is dying due to cancer. No effective agent has yet been found which can cure cancer in its metastatic stage. However, attempts in the shape of chemotherapy, immunotherapy and vaccines are made worldwide to find a remedy through a proper regimen. In continuation, tumor specific mRNA has been introduced as part of vaccines in recent days. It is mostly used in transfection with Dendritic Cells (DCs) for better effectiveness and safety. The DCs are selected for transfection because they are highly potent Antigen Presenting Cells (APCs) with the ability to take up & process tumor antigen in peripheral blood & tissues and can also migrate to the draining lymph nodes to present antigen to naïve T lymphocytes & induce the immune response.
Although initially the RNA vaccination was administered alone, due to its unstable and easily degradable nature, it was found to be quite less effective, which led it to be used in combination with some stability enhancers’ viz. RNA packaging in liposomes. They not only increased its stability, but even worked as active immune stimulators as well. RNA could remain stable. Although it showed significant promise in cancer treatment, immune suppression was noticed after vaccination. To enhance the effectiveness it is now being used in combination with few drugs viz. SUNITINIB which can reduce the suppressive effect of suppressor cells. It might be a good choice for combined therapy with RNA vaccine.

