摘要
Immunotherapy,which boosts the systemic anticancer immune response,has shown promise in curing cancer.1 Checkpoint blockades,a successful type of immunotherapy,function by blocking the inhibitory signal between cancer cells and effector T cells.While this treatment has been approved by the FDA for various types of cancers,its utility is still limited by the low patient response rates and the severe side effects.2 Another type of immunotherapy,known as chimeric antigen receptor(CAR)T therapy,which genetically modifies patients’T cells ex vivo before infusing them back into patients’bodies,has been approved by the FDA for treating lymphomas.However,drawbacks of CAR T therapies such as the ineffectiveness against solid tumors,severe side effects,long processing time,and high cost remain to be addressed.3 Tackling these issues has motivated the development of new immunotherapies that can elicit potent and persistent cytotoxic T lymphocyte(CTL)response and minimize off-target toxicity.The encouraging ability to modulate the function of antigen presenting cells(APCs)and orchestrate the priming of antigen-specific T cells has been actively pursued in therapeutic cancer vaccines,which function by delivering tumor antigens and adjuvants to APCs(e.g.,dendritic cells(DCs))to facilitate the generation of antigen-specific CTLs.Various types of DCbased cancer vaccines,nanomaterial vaccines,and biomaterial scaffold-based cancer vaccines have been developed,and while their safety has been demonstrated in clinical trials,the antitumor efficacy is still limited,likely as a result of poor cancer-specific CTL response.
