Importance of the field: The challenge in breast cancer vaccine development is to find the best combination of antigen, adjuvant and delivery system to produce a strong and long-lasting immune response. Mucin 1 (MUC1) is a potential candidate target for breast cancer immunotherapy. Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) is used widely in human vaccines. Furthermore, it can potentially offer unique advantages for developing a safe and effective multi-vaccine vehicle. Due to these properties, the development of MUC1 based recombinant BCG (rBCG) vaccines for breast cancer immunotherapy has gained great momentum in recent years.
Areas covered in this review: Our aim is to discuss the recent progress in MUC1-based breast cancer immunotherapy and to highlight the advantages of MUC1-based rBCG vaccines as the new breast cancer vaccines.
What the reader will gain: Several promising MUC1-based rBCG vaccines have been shown to induce MUC1-specific antitumor immune responses in pre-clinical studies. This review updates and evaluates this very important and rapidly developing field, and provides a critical perspective and information source for its potential clinical applications.
Take home message: MUC1-based rBCG vaccines have been shown to elicit an effective anti-tumor immune response in vivo demonstrating its potential utility in breast cancer treatment.