Dendritic cells maturation facilitated by group-adjustable lipopolysaccharide analogues synthesized via RAFT polymerization

Metal-Free Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization to Prepare Recylable Micro-Adjuvants for Dendritic Cell Vaccine

In the development of dendritic cell (DC) vaccines, the maturation of DCs is a critical stage. Adjuvants play a pivotal role in the maturation of DCs, with a major concern being to ensure both efficacy and safety. This study introduces an innovative approach that combines high efficacy with safety through the synthesis of micro-adjuvants grafted with copolymers of 2-(methacrylamido) glucopyranose (MAG) and methacryloxyethyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (DMC). The utilization of metal-free surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization enables the production of safe and recyclable adjuvants. These micrometer-sized adjuvants surpass the optimal size range for cellular endocytosis, enabling the retrieval and reuse of them during the ex vivo maturation process, mitigating potential toxicity concerns associated with the endocytosis of non-metabolized nanoparticles. Additionally, the adjuvants exhibit a "micro-ligand-mediated maturation enhancement" effect for DC maturation. This effect is influenced by the shape of the particle, as evidenced by the distinct promotion effects of rod-like and spherical micro-adjuvants with comparable sizes. Furthermore, the porous structure of the adjuvants enables them to function as cargo-carrying "micro-shuttles", releasing antigens upon binding to DCs to facilitate efficient antigen delivery.

Click-Chemistry-Mediated Cell Membrane Glycopolymer Engineering to Potentiate Dendritic Cell Vaccines

Dendritic cell vaccine (DCV) holds great potential in tumor immunotherapy owing to its potent ability in eliciting tumor-specific immune responses. Aiming at engineering enhanced DCV, we report the first effort to construct a glycopolymer-engineered DC vaccine (G-DCV) via metabolicglycoengineering and copper-free click-chemistry. Model G-DCV was prepared by firstly delivering tumor antigens, ovalbumin (OVA) into dendritic cells (DC) with fluoroalkane-grafted polyethyleneimines, followed by conjugating glycopolymers with a terminal group of dibenzocyclooctyne (DBCO) onto dendritic cells. Compared to unmodified DCV, our G-DCV could induce stronger T cell activation due to the enhanced adhesion between DCs and T cells. Notably, such G-DCV could more effectively inhibit the growth of the mouse B16-OVA (expressing OVA antigen) tumor model after adoptive transfer. Moreover, by combination with an immune checkpoint inhibitor, G-DCV showed further increased anti-tumor effects in treating different tumor models. Thus, our work provides a novel strategy to enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of DC vaccines.

Glycopolymers With On/Off Anchors: Confinement Effect on Regulating Dendritic Cells

Insufficient activation or over-activation of T cells due to the dendritic cells (DCs) state can cause negative effects on immunotherapy, making it crucial for DCs to maintain different states in different treatments. Polysaccharides are one of the most studied substances to promote DCs maturation. However, in many methods, optimizing the spatial dimension of the interaction between polysaccharides and cells is often overlooked. Therefore, in this study, a new strategy from the perspective of spatial dimension is proposed to regulate the efficacy of polysaccharides in promoting DCs maturation. An anchoring molecule (DMA) is introduced to existing glycopolymers for the confinement effect, and the effect can be turned off by oxidation of DMA. Among the prepared on-confined (PMD2 ), off-confined (PMD2 -O), and norm (PM2 ) glycopolymers, PMD2 and PMD2 -O show the best and worst results, respectively, in terms of the amount of binding to DCs and the effect on promoting DCs maturation. This sufficiently shows that the turn-on and off of confinement effect can regulate the maturation of DCs by polysaccharides. Based on the all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, the mechanism of difference in the confinement effect is explained. This simple method can also be used to regulate other molecule-cell interactions to guide cell behavior.

Recent Advances and Challenges in Barbier Polymerization

The Barbier reaction, a classical name reaction for carbon-carbon bond formation, has played important roles in organic chemistry for over 120 years. The introduction of the Barbier reaction into polymer chemistry for the development of a novel Barbier polymerization, expands the methodology, monomer, chemical structure and property libraries of polymerization, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) and non-traditional intrinsic luminescence (NTIL). This mini review focuses on Barbier polymerization, including the brief introduction of the history and importance of polymerization methods design and the achievements of Barbier polymerization from molecular design strategies, functionalities and properties. An outlook of Barbier polymerization is also proposed. This mini review on Barbier polymerization therefore may cause inspirations to scientists in different fields.

In situ preparation of glyco-micromotors and their bacteria loading/guiding ability

We successfully synthesized glyco-micromotors in situ directed by multifunctional glycopolymers, which were obtained by copolymerizing 2-methacrylamido glucopyranose (MAG) and 2-(diethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DEAEMA) monomers. The fabricated glyco-micromotors present abilities in loading and guiding bacteria with different individual and group motions.