Emerging Prospects for Nanoparticle-Enabled Cancer Immunotherapy

Abstract

One of the standards for cancer treatment is cancer immunotherapy which treats both primary and metastasized tumors. Although cancer immunotherapeutics show better outcomes as compared with conventional approaches of cancer treatment, the currently used cancer immunotherapeutics have limited application in delivering cancer antigens to immune cells. Conversely, in solid tumors, tumor microenvironment suppresses the immune system leading to the evasion of anticancer immunity. Some promising attempts have been made to overcome these drawbacks by using different approaches, for instance, the use of biomaterial-based nanoparticles. Accordingly, various studies involving the application of nanoparticles in cancer immunotherapy have been discussed in this review article. This review not only describes the modes of cancer immunotherapy to reveal the importance of nanoparticles in this modality but also narrates nanoparticle-mediated delivery of cancer antigens and therapeutic supplements. Moreover, the impact of nanoparticles on the immunosuppressive behavior of tumor environment has been discussed. The last part of this review deals with cancer immunotherapy using a combination of traditional interventional oncology approach and image-guided local immunotherapy against cancer. According to recent studies, cancer therapy can potentially be improved through nanoparticle-based immunotherapy. In addition, drawbacks associated with the currently used cancer immunotherapeutics can be fixed by using nanoparticles.

Nanomaterials-Mediated Immunomodulation for Cancer Therapeutics

“…Nanoparticles can infiltrate the “cold” tumours allowing co-delivery of a wide variety of payloads specifically to the tumour site thus boosting the immune activation at TME. Additionally, the immunomodulatory properties of the NMs also aid in turning “cold” tumours into “hot” ( Rodallec et al, 2018 ; Buabeid et al, 2020 ). For example, a recent study based on citrate-coated superparamagnetic iron oxide NPs (SPIONs) display the capacity to act as a magnetic drug delivery system for guided targeting to “cold” tumours by application of an external magnetic field ( Mühlberger et al, 2019 ).…”

Advanced Nanotechnology for Enhancing Immune Checkpoint Blockade Therapy

“…In the last few years, several NP systems have been optimized and applied to cancer immunotherapy (reviewed in [ 21 ]). Among a wide array, liposome, gold and polymer-based NPs are the most frequently used delivery systems for cancer immunotherapy [ 22 , 45 ].…”

“…This structure allows multiple drugs to be simultaneously carried and target delivered, thus supporting combinatorial therapeutic strategies. The combination of immunotherapy and nanomedicine may enhance the efficacy of single conventional therapy [ 14 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Here we summarize preclinical studies proposing this approach, focusing on CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy, both as single agents and in combination strategies.…”

Nanoparticles as Smart Carriers for Enhanced Cancer Immunotherapy

“…Cancer immunotherapy not only treats cancer by inducing strong anti-tumor immune response but also controls metastasis as well as prevents its recurrence; hence representing a major advantage over traditional cancer treatments (Hodi et al, 2010 ; Kroemer and Zitvogel, 2018 ). However, some limitations are also associated with the existing cancer immunotherapy such as induction of destructive auto-immunity (Phan et al, 2003 ) and lack of effective delivery of cancer antigens to immune cells (Buabeid et al, 2020 ). Besides, the immunosuppressive TME itself attenuates the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy (Zou, 2005 ; Munn and Bronte, 2016 ).…”