Nanomaterial-based delivery vehicles for therapeutic cancer vaccine development

Abstract

Nanomaterial-based delivery vehicles such as lipid-based, polymer-based, inorganics-based, and bio-inspired vehicles often carry distinct and attractive advantages in the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines. Based on various delivery vehicles, specifically designed nanomaterials-based vaccines are highly advantageous in boosting therapeutic and prophylactic antitumor immunities. Specifically, therapeutic vaccines featuring unique properties have made major contributions to the enhancement of antigen immunogenicity, encapsulation efficiency, biocompatibility, and stability, as well as promoting antigen cross-presentation and specific CD8⁺ T cell responses. However, for clinical applications, tumor-associated antigen-derived vaccines could be an obstacle, involving immune tolerance and deficiency of tumor specificities, in achieving maximum therapeutic indices. However, when using bioinformatics predictions with emerging innovations of in silico tools, neoantigen-based therapeutic vaccines might become potent personalized vaccines for tumor treatments. In this review, we summarize the development of preclinical therapeutic cancer vaccines and the advancements of nanomaterial-based delivery vehicles for cancer immunotherapies, which provide the basis for a personalized vaccine delivery platform. Moreover, we review the existing challenges and future perspectives of nanomaterial-based personalized vaccines for novel tumor immunotherapies.

Keywords: Nanomaterial-based delivery vehicles; bioinformatic prediction; neoantigen; personalized vaccines; tumor immunotherapy.

Figure 1

Overview of neoantigen-based therapeutic cancer vaccines by Hu et al. (A) Neoantigen prediction and vaccine manufacture. (B) Clinical trials of neoantigen-based personalized vaccines. (C) Approaches of enhanced neoantigen-based vaccines.

Figure 2

Schematic illustration of nanomaterials-based vaccine delivery vehicles. Different synthetic delivery vehicles such as lipid-based vehicles, polymer-based vehicles, inorganics-based vehicles, and bio-inspired vehicles are used in vaccine construction.

Figure 3

Schematic of the combination of cell primitives and synthetic materials with their functions by Luo et al.