AIM: To study whether heat-shocked tumor cells could enhance the effect of tumor cell lysate-pulsed dendritic cells (DCs) in evoking anti-tumor immune response in vivo.METHODS: Mouse undifferentiated colon cancer cells(CT-26) were heated at 42℃ for 1 h and then frozenthawed. The bone marrow-derived DCs pulsed with heatshocked CT-26 cell lysate (HSCT-26 DCs) were recruited to immunize syngeneic naive BALB/c mice. The cytotoxic activity of tumor specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs)in mouse spleen was evaluated by IFN-enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISpot) and LDH release assay. The immunoprophylactic effects induced by HSCT-26 DCs in mouse colon cancer model were compared to those induced by single CT-26 cell lysate-pulsed DCs (CT-26DCs) on tumor volume, peritoneal metastasis and survival time of the mice.RESULTS: Heat-treated CT-26 cells showed a higher hsp70 protein expression. Heat-shocked CT-26 cell lysate pulsing elevated the co-stimulatory and MHC-Ⅱ molecule expression of bone marrow-derived DCs as well as interleukin-12 p70 secretion. The IFN-γ secreting CTLs induced by HSCT-26 DCs were significantly more than those induced by CT-26 DCs (P= 0.002). The former CTLs' specific cytotoxic activity was higher than the latter CTLs' at a serial E/T ratio of 10:1, 20:1, and 40:1. Mouse colon cancer model showed that the tumor volume of HSCT-26 DC vaccination group was smaller than that of CT-26 DC vaccination group on tumor volume though there was no statistical difference between them(24 mm3 vs 8 mm3, P= 0.480). The median survival time of mice immunized with HSCT-26 DCs was longer than that of those immunized with CT-26 DCs (57 d vs 43 d,P= 0.0384).CONCLUSION: Heat-shocked tumor cell lysate-pulsed DCs can evoke anti-tumor immune response in vivo effectively and serve as a novel DC-based tumor vaccine.