Future Perspective
Nanoimmunotherapy, nanotechnology-based delivery systems for sustained and targeted delivery of antigens to DCs, may be a promising strategy due to its dose-sparing nature, prolonged antigen-presentation and its ability to elicit much stronger T-cell response.[23,33] Although a single epitope showed some effect in tumor treatment, the protective immunity developed in a mouse model cannot completely result in tumor rejection. This may be at least in part attributed to the phenomenon that tumor cells could cause downregulation of antigen expression, which makes them invisible to CTLs. In this research, we proved that the combination of multiple antigens may make it more difficult for tumor cells to escape from the surveillance of the immune system than a single antigen and thus improve anticancer efficiency. To increase the efficiency of antigen delivery to DCs, we will develop a novel system to co-encapsulate different peptides in one NP. This cancer vaccine system will provide a novel antigen delivery system and a mechanism of inhibiting tumor immune escape.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank EL Reinherz (Cancer Vaccine Center and Laboratory of Immunobiology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute [MA, USA] and Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School [MA, USA]) for his critical support; W Zeng and M Handley (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) for their helpful discussion and technical help; D Irvine (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, MA, USA) for kindly providing us with their particle sizer; and the staff of Department of Cell Biology in Harvard Medical School for his/her assistance on transmission electron microscopy.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This work is supported by the Important National Science and Technology Specific Projects, China (973 Program, 2012CB932500), NSFC (number 81241103 & 21204024), Doctoral Fund of Ministry of Education of China (20120142120093), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (number 2013T60722), Innovative Research Fund and the funding for Cancer Vaccine Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Ethical conduct of research
The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.
Nanomedicine. 2014;9(5):635-647. © 2014 Future Medicine Ltd.
