Hydrogel-guided Strategies to Stimulate an Effective Immune Response for Vaccine-based Cancer Immunotherapy

Overview

Journal Sci Adv

Specialties Biology
Science

Date 2022 Nov 25

PMID 36427310

Authors

Lei Lei

Dennis Huang

Huile Gao

Bin He

Jun Cao

Nicholas A Peppas

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

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.

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