Biomaterial-based strategies to prime dendritic cell-mediated anti-cancer immune responses

ABSTRACT

Cancer immunotherapy has been extremely successful in curing patients over the last decade. Immune checkpoint blockades (ICBs) that unleash the brakes in T-cells to promote cytotoxicity against cancer cells are the most successful forms of cancer immunotherapy, yet therapeutic efficacy needs to be improved as only a fraction of patients responds. Dendritic cells (DCs) are immune cells that prime immune responses by collecting information in tumour tissues, and carrying that information to T-cells, thus delivering proper information to DCs is essential. Biomaterial-based approaches can be powerful tools for this purpose, as biomaterials allow us to deliver a variety of immunotherapeutic agents at the right time and place. Herein, we review the key concepts of cancer immunotherapy; discuss the principles for designing biomaterials to deliver immunomodulatory molecules; and outline biomaterial-based strategies to prime anti-cancer immune responses. Specifically, we focus on two widely used forms of biomaterials, multifunctional nanoparticles and biocompatible scaffolds.

KEYWORDS:

• Cancer immunotherapy
• biomaterials
• multifunctional nanoparticles
• biocompatible scaffolds
• priming anti-cancer immune responses

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea grant funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT), Republic of Korea [grant numbers 2020R1A2B5B03001747, 2018R1C1B6001120, 2019R1C1C1006300, 2019H1D3A1A01071072, and 2020R1A2B5B03002344].