Poly lactic-co-glycolic acid-based nanoparticles as delivery systems for enhanced cancer immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancer has emerged as one of the most severe diseases in modern times, various therapies have advanced remarkably in recent decades. Unlike the direct therapeutic targeting tumor cells, immunotherapy is a promising strategy that stimulate the immune system. In cancer immunotherapy, polymeric-based nanoparticles can serve as deliver systems for antigens and immunostimulatory molecules, and they have attracted increasing attention and revolutionized cancer therapy. Poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) is the most frequently used clinically approved biodegradable polymer and has a broad scope of modification of its inherent properties. Recent advances in PLGA based drug delivery systems in cancer immunotherapy have been described in this mini review, with special emphasis on cancer vaccines and tumor microenvironment modulation.

Cabozantinib-Loaded PLGA Nanoparticles: A Potential Adjuvant Strategy for Surgically Resected High-Risk Non-Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma

“…To our knowledge, no studies have reported CZ-loaded NPs to overcome the limitations of CZ, including poor solubility, low oral bioavailability, and high toxicity burden associated with a challenge for a clinical translation of CZ into an antimetastatic adjuvant TKI in high-risk RCC. In the present study, we focused on PLGA among diverse polysynthetic materials because PLGA has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for pharmaceutical applications via parenteral routes, suggesting that PLGA-based NPs are in a better position for clinical trials compared to that of other NP systems [ 48 , 55 ]. Loading CZ into PLGA-NPs provides many additional advantages, such as passive targeting via the EPR effect, increased specific surface area, high backbone stability, controllable slow release according to degradation kinetics, micro-cytotoxicity, high drug loading, and feasibility of modification of morphology/structure to increase tumor targeting [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 ].…”

“…The enhanced permeability retention (EPR) effect allows for the passive targeting by NPs (ranging from 40 to 400 nm in size) when administrated intravenously due to vascular leakage and defective lymphatic drainage in solid tumors, enabling long-term circulation with increased efficacy and reduced toxicity by decreasing drug accumulation in normal organs [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. More importantly, NPs can significantly improve the aqueous solubility and, eventually, the oral bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs due to a smaller size, greater surface area to volume ratio, and higher cell penetration ability [ 48 , 54 , 55 ]. Currently, several efforts to design systematic formulations to overcome the poor solubility of hydrophobic TKIs have demonstrated that different polymeric nanocomplex NPs significantly improve the anti-cancer efficacy of TKIs, such as sorafenib, ponatinib, and nilotinib, by enhancing their bioavailability and allowing for the efficient delivery of the drug to tumor tissues while reducing adverse side effects [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 ].…”

Nanomaterials in tumor immunotherapy: new strategies and challenges

“…Natural and synthetic medicine-related polymer nanomaterials, for instance poly lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA), polyethylene glycol, polyurethane, polycaprolactone (PCL), poly(hydroxyacetic acid), hydrogel nanoparticles and others, are extensively applied in the field of tissue engineering, tissue regeneration, drug controlled release and tumor immunotherapy because of their excellent biodegradability, large surface area, low cytotoxicity and easy modification properties [ 108 – 112 ]. The different types of polymeric nanomaterials which have been reported were summarized in Table 2 .…”

Oral Nanomedicine: Challenges and Opportunities

“…To overcome these biological barriers mentioned above prior to reaching the target region, organic nanomaterials can be the candidate as oral delivery carriers with their multiple advantages, such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, non-immunogenicity, prolonged delivery, easy modification, and so on. [28][29][30][31][32] In this section, we will briefly introduce the cases of organic nanomaterials in oral medicine delivery and describe how they traverse the biological barriers to enhance the bioavailability of oral medicines.…”