A diode-pumped single frequency Tm:YAG laser operating at 2 μm is demonstrated in this letter. The laser crystal is controlled at room temperature by using a thermoelectric cooler. Two solid uncoated fused silica etalons are employed to narrow the laser line-width, the thicknesses of which are 0.1 mm and 1 mm, respectively. By tuning the angle of the etalons, single frequency laser is achieved and the oscillating wavelength can be changed from 2008 nm to 2021 nm. And at each wavelength, single-frequency laser is achieved. The maximum single frequency laser power is up to 75.0 mW with the central wavelength of 2013.9 nm. To our knowledge, this is the first time to obtain single-frequency Tm:YAG laser of 75.0 mW with F-P etalons in the cavity. FSR = 3.75 GHz

Immunogenicity of tumor cells is generally weak. Therefore, dendritic cells (DCs) have been used to boost anti-tumor responses of DC-based vaccines. DC function is highly dependent on its subsets and the level of its maturation. Nowadays, DC/tumor cell fusion vaccines are already used in clinical trials, and there are numerous studies discussing the effects of cytidine-phosphate-guanosine-containing oligonucleotides (CpG-ODN) on various cell types including DC. CpG-ODN a powerful immuno-stimulant can drive DCs fully mature, thus improve the efficacy of vaccine therapy. There are two simple ways to help load tumor antigens onto DCs by direct contact with cells themselves: fusion or co-culture of DCs with whole tumor cells. In this study, we combined these two approaches to improve the efficacy of DC/tumor cell-based vaccine. Mature DCs are adept at presenting processed Ag to T cells with loss of its capacity to capture Ag, while immature DCs are on the contrary. Our results emphasize the necessity of considering the stage of DC maturation and corresponding choice of tumor antigen delivery when designing approaches for prophylaxis or therapy of tumors using DC-based immunization protocols. We used CpG-ODN-1826-stimulated mature DCs and non-CpG-ODN-stimulating DCs as sources of tumor antigen carriers to investigate the appropriate Ag-loading ways between fusion and co-culture. Our results displayed that DC/tumor vaccine using CpG-ODN-stimulating mature DCs fused, not co-cultured, with tumor cells can generate a consistent and highly effective anti-tumor immune responses in vivo.

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