Nano toolbox in immune modulation and nanovaccines

Abou-Saleh

et al. 2022

Viruses

There is no doubt that infectious diseases present global impact on the economy, society, health, mental state, and even political aspects, causing a long-lasting dent, and the situation will surely worsen if and when the viral spread becomes out of control, as seen during the still ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Despite the considerable achievements made in viral prevention and treatment, there are still significant challenges that can be overcome through careful understanding of the viral mechanism of action to establish common ground for innovating new preventative and treatment strategies. Viruses can be regarded as devil nanomachines, and one innovative approach to face and stop the spread of viral infections is the development of nanoparticles that can act similar to them as drug/vaccine carriers. Moreover, we can use the properties that different viruses have in designing nanoparticles that reassemble the virus conformational structures but that do not present the detrimental threats to human health that native viruses possess. This review discusses the current preventative strategies (i.e., vaccination) used in facing viral infections and the associated limitations, highlighting the importance of innovating new approaches to face viral infectious diseases and discussing the current nanoapplications in vaccine development and the challenges that still face the nanovaccine field.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Think like a Virus: Toward Improving Nanovaccine Development against SARS-CoV-2

Abou-Saleh

et al. 2022

Viruses

“…Hydrogels can load multiple antigens and immunomodulators due to their high encapsulation efficiency. Sustained release of loaded cargo from hydrogels can mimic the immune priming that facilitates immune cell recruitment in situ, thus enhancing the potency and breadth of vaccination ( 67 , 68 ). In addition, hydrogels that exhibit microporous structures or are composed of materials with intrinsic immunomodulating functions could also assist with in situ immune cell recruitment, thus eliciting further downstream immune responses ( 11 ).…”

Section: Strategies For Hydrogel-based Cancer Vaccine To Initiate An ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…TNF-α mediates the inflammatory signals to exert a profound influence on increasing the immature DCs and inducing the maturation of DCs to migrate to the LN ( 76 ). Meanwhile, the duration of the antigenic and immunoadjuvant’s stimulation has been demonstrated to be the critical factor for initiating the immune responses ( 67 , 78 ). Compared to vaccines with a rapid release of antigens (enabled via disulfide linkages), the particulate subunit vaccines with a sustained release of antigens (enabled via thioether linkages) resulted in enhanced antigen presentation, DC maturation, and antitumor immune responses ( 78 ).…”

Section: Strategies For Hydrogel-based Cancer Vaccine To Initiate An ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, extending antigen release from vaccines also have the potential to prevent tumor recurrence and metastases ( 68 ). The exact mechanism is still unclear, but reports suggest that sustained antigen and adjuvant release provides sufficient time for APCs to recognize and process antigens before presenting them ( 67 ). Sustained antigen and immunoadjuvant release also helps mimic the “inflammatory infection system” and enrich the recruitment of immune cells, resulting in a stronger downstream immune response ( 68 , 79 ).…”

Section: Strategies For Hydrogel-based Cancer Vaccine To Initiate An ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hydrogel-guided strategies to stimulate an effective immune response for vaccine-based cancer immunotherapy

et al. 2022

Cancer vaccines have attracted widespread interest in tumor therapy because of the potential to induce an effective antitumor immune response. However, many challenges including weak immunogenicity, off-target effects, and immunosuppressive microenvironments have prevented their broad clinical translation. To overcome these difficulties, effective delivery systems have been designed for cancer vaccines. As carriers in cancer vaccine delivery systems, hydrogels have gained substantial attention because they can encapsulate a variety of antigens/immunomodulators and protect them from degradation. This enables hydrogels to simultaneously reverse immunosuppression and stimulate the immune response. Meanwhile, the controlled release properties of hydrogels allow for precise temporal and spatial release of loads in situ to further enhance the immune response of cancer vaccines. Therefore, this review summarizes the classification of cancer vaccines, highlights the strategies of hydrogel-based cancer vaccines, and provides some insights into the future development of hydrogel-based cancer vaccines.

“…Although adjuvants have been examined, the clinical transformation of cancer vaccines still faces many obstacles, including the highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, down-regulation of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I (MHC-I) on cancer cells, ineffective activation of APCs, and inability to activate antitumor immunity [ 16 ]. Advances in nanotechnology have led to the development of nanovaccines that not only can overcome the drawbacks of traditional vaccines, but also possess advanced modulation abilities [ 17 ]. As a vaccine delivery system, nanoparticles can achieve superior efficacy for several reasons: (1) Nanoparticles can trigger tumor antigen release in situ to enhance immune response and load antigen and adjuvant simultaneously to effectively activate APCs, avoiding immune tolerance caused by immature APCs directly phagocytizing antigen [ 18 , 19 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-adjuvanting cancer nanovaccines

Liao

Huang

et al. 2022

J Nanobiotechnol

Nanovaccines, a new generation of vaccines that use nanoparticles as carriers and/or adjuvants, have been widely used in the prevention and treatment of various diseases, including cancer. Nanovaccines have sparked considerable interest in cancer therapy due to a variety of advantages, including improved access to lymph nodes (LN), optimal packing and presentation of antigens, and induction of a persistent anti-tumor immune response. As a delivery system for cancer vaccines, various types of nanoparticles have been designed to facilitate the delivery of antigens and adjuvants to lymphoid organs and antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Particularly, some types of nanoparticles are able to confer an immune-enhancing capability and can themselves be utilized for adjuvant-like effect for vaccines, suggesting a direction for a better use of nanomaterials and the optimization of cancer vaccines. However, this role of nanoparticles in vaccines has not been well studied. To further elucidate the role of self-adjuvanting nanovaccines in cancer therapy, we review the mechanisms of antitumor vaccine adjuvants with respect to nanovaccines with self-adjuvanting properties, including enhancing cross-presentation, targeting signaling pathways, biomimicking of the natural invasion process of pathogens, and further unknown mechanisms. We surveyed self-adjuvanting cancer nanovaccines in clinical research and discussed their advantages and challenges. In this review, we classified self-adjuvanting cancer nanovaccines according to the underlying immunomodulatory mechanism, which may provide mechanistic insights into the design of nanovaccines in the future. Graphical Abstract