Advances of functional nanomaterials for cancer immunotherapeutic applications

Nanotechnology in cervical cancer immunotherapy: Therapeutic vaccines and adoptive cell therapy

Immunotherapy is an emerging method for the treatment of cervical cancer and is more effective than surgery and radiotherapy, especially for recurrent cervical cancer. However, immunotherapy is limited by adverse effects in clinical practice. In recent years, nanotechnology has been widely used for tumor diagnosis, drug delivery, and targeted therapy. In the setting of cervical cancer, nanotechnology can be used to actively or passively target immunotherapeutic agents to tumor sites, thereby enhancing local drug delivery, reducing drug adverse effects, achieving immunomodulation, improving the tumor immune microenvironment, and optimizing treatment efficacy. In this review, we highlight the current status of therapeutic vaccines and adoptive cell therapy in cervical cancer immunotherapy, as well as the application of lipid carriers, polymeric nanoparticles, inorganic nanoparticles, and exosomes in this context.

Dendrimers for cancer immunotherapy: Avidity-based drug delivery vehicles for effective anti-tumor immune response

Cancer immunotherapy, or the utilization of a patient's own immune system to treat cancer, has shifted the paradigm of cancer treatment. Despite meaningful responses being observed in multiple studies, currently available immunotherapy platforms have only proven effective to a small subset of patients. To address this, nanoparticles have been utilized as a novel carrier for immunotherapeutic drugs, achieving robust anti-tumor effects with increased adaptive and durable responses. Specifically, dendrimer nanoparticles have attracted a great deal of scientific interest due to their versatility in various therapeutic applications, resulting from their unique physicochemical properties and chemically well-defined architecture. This review offers a comprehensive overview of dendrimer-based immunotherapy technologies, including their formulations, biological functionalities, and therapeutic applications. Common formulations include: (1) modulators of cytokine secretion of immune cells (adjuvants); (2) facilitators of the recognition of tumorous antigens (vaccines); (3) stimulators of immune effectors to selectively attack cells expressing specific antigens (antibodies); and (4) inhibitors of immune-suppressive responses (immune checkpoint inhibitors). On-going works and prospects of dendrimer-based immunotherapies are also discussed. Overall, this review provides a critical overview on rapidly growing dendrimer-based immunotherapy technologies and serves as a guideline for researchers and clinicians who are interested in this field. This article is categorized under: Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Nanoscale Systems in Biology Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Oncologic Disease Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Emerging Technologies.

Role of nanostructures in allergy: Diagnostics, treatments and safety

Nanotechnology is science, engineering and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1-100 nm. It has led to the development of nanomaterials, which behave very differently from materials with larger scales and can have a wide range of applications in biomedicine. The physical and chemical properties of materials of such small compounds depend mainly on the size, shape, composition and functionalization of the system. Nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, liposomes, polymers, dendrimers and nanogels, among others, can be nanoengineeried for controlling all parameters, including their functionalization with ligands, which provide the desired interaction with the immunological system, that is dendritic cell receptors to activate and/or modulate the response, as well as specific IgE, or effector cell receptors. However, undesired issues related to toxicity and hypersensitivity responses can also happen and would need evaluation. There are wide panels of accessible structures, and controlling their physico-chemical properties would permit obtaining safer and more efficient compounds for clinical applications goals, either in diagnosis or treatment. The application of dendrimeric antigens, nanoallergens and nanoparticles in allergy diagnosis is very promising since it can improve sensitivity by increasing specific IgE binding, mimicking carrier proteins or enhancing signal detection. Additionally, in the case of immunotherapy, glycodendrimers, liposomes, polymers and nanoparticles have shown interest, behaving as platforms of allergenic structures, adjuvants or protectors of allergen from degradation or having a depot capacity. Taken together, the application of nanotechnology to allergy shows promising facts facing important goals related to the improvement of diagnosis as well as specific immunotherapy.

Tumor immunotherapy and multi-mode therapies mediated by medical imaging of nanoprobes

Immunotherapy is an effective tumor treatment strategy that has several advantages over conventional methods such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Studies show that multifunctional nanoprobes can achieve multi-mode image-guided multiple tumor treatment modes. The tumor cells killed by chemotherapies or phototherapies release antigens that trigger an immune response and augment the effects of tumor immunotherapy. Thus, combining immunotherapy and multifunctional nanoprobes can achieve early cancer diagnosis and treatment. In this review, we have summarized the current research on the applications of multifunctional nanoprobes in image-guided immunotherapy. In addition, image-guided synergistic chemotherapy/photothermal therapy/photodynamic therapy and immunotherapy have also been discussed. Furthermore, the application potential and clinical prospects of multifunctional nanoprobes in combination with immunotherapy have been assessed.

Emerging nanotechnological strategies to reshape tumor microenvironment for enhanced therapeutic outcomes of cancer immunotherapy

Immunotherapy was emerged as a novel cancer treatment in the last decade, however, efficacious responses to mono-immunotherapy have only been achieved in a relatively small portion of patients whereas combinational immunotherapies often lead to concurrent side effects. It has been proved that the tumor microenvironment (TME) is responsible for tumor immune escape and the ultimate treatment failure. Recently, both the understanding of the TME and the applications of nanotechnological strategies have achieved remarkable progresses, and reviewing the emerging immune-regulatory nanosystems may provide valuable information for specifically modulating the TME at different immune stages. In this review, we focus on comprehending the recently proposed T-cell-based tumor classification and identifying the most promising targets for different tumor phenotypes, and then summarizing the nanotechnological strategies to best target corresponding immune-related factors. For future precise personalized immunotherapy, the tailor-made TME modulation strategies conducted by well-designed nanosystems to alleviate the suppressive TME and then promote anti-tumor immune responses will significantly benefit the clinical outcomes of cancer patients.

Nanotherapeutic systems for delivering cancer vaccines: recent advances

With an increase in the global burden of cancer-related deaths, the quest for developing new therapeutic solutions has taken momentum. In this regard, the idea of using cancer vaccines came to existence approximately 30 years ago, where gene therapy interventions have shown significant improvement in the therapeutic outcomes against several types of cancers. Cancer vaccines usually encounter a number of challenges with limited targeting ability to the tumors. Nanocarriers have been studied as a technological innovation for tumor targeting of gene therapeutics. This article provides a critical insight into the recent progress made in nanotherapeutic strategies for genetic vaccine delivery for treatment against various types of cancers. Moreover, the article intends to provide a summary of the research work being done on this topic.