Nanomaterial-based delivery vehicles for therapeutic cancer vaccine development

Nanomaterial-based delivery vehicles such as lipid-based,polymer-based,inorganics-based,and bio-inspired vehicles often carry distinct and attractive advantages in the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines.Based on various delivery vehicles,specifically designed nanomaterials-based vaccines are highly advantageous in boosting therapeutic and prophylactic antitumor immunities.Specifically,therapeutic vaccines featuring unique properties have made major contributions to the enhancement of antigen immunogenicity,encapsulation efficiency,biocompatibility,and stability,as well as promoting antigen cross-presentation and specific CD8^(+)T cell responses.However,for clinical applications,tumor-associated antigen-derived vaccines could be an obstacle,involving immune tolerance and deficiency of tumor specificities,in achieving maximum therapeutic indices.However,when using bioinformatics predictions with emerging innovations of in silico tools,neoantigen-based therapeutic vaccines might become potent personalized vaccines for tumor treatments.In this review,we summarize the development of preclinical therapeutic cancer vaccines and the advancements of nanomaterial-based delivery vehicles for cancer immunotherapies,which provide the basis for a personalized vaccine delivery platform.Moreover,we review the existing challenges and future perspectives of nanomaterial-based personalized vaccines for novel tumor immunotherapies.

Research advances in the detection of miRNA

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a family of endogenous, small (approximately 22 nucleotides in length), noncoding, functional RNAs. With the development of molecular biology, the research of miRNA biological function has attracted significant interest, as abnormal miRNA expression is identified to contribute to serious human diseases such as cancers. Traditional methods for miRNA detection do not meet current demands. In particular, nanomaterial-based methods, nucleic acid amplification-based methods such as rolling circle amplification (RCA), loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), strand-displacement amplification (SDA) and some enzyme-free amplifications have been employed widely for the highly sensitive detection of miRNA. MiRNA functional research and clinical diagnostics have been accelerated by these new techniques. Herein, we summarize and discuss the recent progress in the development of miRNA detection methods and new applications. This review will provide guidelines for the development of follow-up miRNA detection methods with high sensitivity and specificity, and applicability to disease diagnosis and therapy.

Recent advances in DNA glycosylase assays

Genomic deoxyribonucleic acid(DNA)is selected as the ideal carrier for preserving and transmitting the genetic information over the course of evolution.However,the genomic DNA is constantly exposed to various endogenous and environmental threats,causing a diversity of damaged bases,lesions,mismatches and base-pair modifications in the genome,eventually leading to genomic instability and cancers.Base excision repair(BER)is the most important repair mechanism,repairing a variety of DNA damages arising from oxidation,alkylation,methylation,deamination,and hydrolysis reactions.DNA glycosylases are responsible for initiating the first step of the BER pathway through cleaving the N-glycosidic bond between the damaged base and the DNA backbone.However,abnormal DNA glycosylases are associated with a variety of diseases such as cancer,cardiovascular disease,neurological disease and inflammation,suggesting the important role of DNA glycosylases in cancer diagnosis and treatment.Therefore,it is highly desirable to monitor the activity of DNA glycosylases,gaining a deep understanding of the restoration process of damaged DNA and clinical diagnosis.Recently,a series of novel DNA glycosylases detection methods with excellent performance have been developed.In this minireview,we summarize the recent advances in DNA glycosylase assays including amplification-free assay and amplification-assisted assay.Firstly,a brief introduction of amplification-free assay for DNA glycosylase is given.Then,amplification-assisted assays for DNA glycosylases are discussed in detail.Ultimately,the conclusion and prospects of the directions of DNA glycosylase assays are provided.