Improving the efficacy of peptide vaccines in cancer immunotherapy

Vaccination and personalized cancer vaccines focusing on common cancers in women: A narrative review

Immunotherapy has recently cast great attention on cancer vaccines in order to aim to decrease tumor growth, elicit persistent anti-tumor memory, and avert adverse reactions. Moreover, cancer vaccines employ tumor antigens to stimulate anti-tumor immunity using different platforms, for example, whole cells, nucleic acids, peptides, etc. Recent findings have classified cancer vaccines into cell-based, virus-based, peptide-based, and nucleic acid-based types. Personalized cancer vaccines, also known as neoantigens, have exhibited acceptable safety and efficacy in eliciting immune responses against melanoma and glioblastoma. Neoantigen-based vaccines, concentrating on tumor antigens present only in cancer cells, bring intriguing opportunities for different types of cancer, including melanoma, lung, bladder, breast, renal, head and neck, and colorectal cancers. Furthermore, breast cancer research underscores ongoing trials of vaccines targeting α-lactalbumin to prevent the recurrence of triple-negative breast cancer. Lung cancer studies have discovered interesting outcomes with liposomal vaccines and the potential of CIMAvax-EGF in the prevention of lung cancer. Studies on ovarian cancer highlight personalized cancer vaccines using dendritic cells and various tumor-associated antigens to elicit T-cell responses against cancer cells. Overall, such advancements suggest great promise for future clinical translation of cancer novel immunotherapy-based approaches to effectively counter various types of cancer.

Cancer vaccine designed from homologous ferritin-based fusion protein with enhanced DC-T cell crosstalk for durable adaptive immunity against tumors

Peptide vaccines based on tumor antigens face the challenges of rapid clearance of peptides, low immunogenicity, and immune suppressive tumor microenvironment. However, the traditional solution mainly uses exogenous substances as adjuvants or carriers to enhance innate immune responses, but excessive inflammation can damage adaptive immunity. In the current study, we propose a straightforward novel nanovaccine strategy by employing homologous human ferritin light chain for minimized innate immunity and dendritic cell (DC) targeting, the cationic KALA peptide for enhanced cellular uptake, and suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 (SOCS1) siRNA for modulating DC activity. Upon fusing with the KALA peptide, this nanovaccine presents as a novel 40-mer cage structure, with highly enriched antigen peptides of proper size (25 nm) for targeted delivery to lymph nodes. The loading of SOCS1 siRNA onto the KALA peptide promoted DC maturation in tumor environment, leading to a 3-fold increase in antigen presentation compared to alum adjuvant. Moreover, it demonstrates remarkable efficacy in suppressing tumor progression and metastasis, together with prolonged survival. In addition, the nanovaccine stimulates up to 40 % memory T cells, thereby achieving sustained protection against tumor re-challenge. This unprecedented nanovaccine platform can ignite fresh interdisciplinary discussions on interactive strategies for future peptide vaccine development.

A new era of cancer immunotherapy: vaccines and miRNAs

Cancer immunotherapy has transformed the treatment landscape, introducing new strategies to fight various types of cancer. This review examines the important role of vaccines in cancer therapy, focusing on recent advancements such as dendritic cell vaccines, mRNA vaccines, and viral vector-based approaches. The relationship between cancer and the immune system highlights the importance of vaccines as therapeutic tools. The discussion covers tumor cell and dendritic cell vaccines, protein/peptide vaccines, and nucleic acid vaccines (including DNA, RNA, or viral vector-based), with a focus on their effectiveness and underlying mechanisms. Combination therapies that pair vaccines with immune checkpoint inhibitors, TIL therapy, and TCR/CAR-T cell therapy show promising potential, boosting antitumor responses. Additionally, the review explores the regulatory functions of microRNAs (miRNAs) in cancer development and suppression, featuring miR-21, miR-155, the let-7 family, and the miR-200 family, among others. These miRNAs influence various pathways, such as PI3K/AKT, NF-κB, and EMT regulation, providing insights into biomarker-driven therapeutic strategies. Overall, this work offers a thorough overview of vaccines in oncology and the integrative role of miRNAs, setting the stage for the next generation of cancer immunotherapies.

Cancer Vaccines and Beyond: The Transformative Role of Nanotechnology in Immunotherapy

Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality globally, responsible for approximately 10 million deaths in 2022 and an estimated 21 million new cases in 2024. Traditional cancer treatments such as surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy often present limitations in efficacy and side effects. However, immunotherapeutic vaccines have emerged as a promising approach, leveraging the body's immune system to target and eliminate cancer cells. This review examines the evolving landscape of cancer vaccines, differentiating between preventive and therapeutic strategies and highlighting the significance of tumor-specific antigens, including tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) and neoantigens. Recent advancements in vaccine technology, particularly through nanotechnology, have resulted in the development of nanovaccines, which enhance antigen stability, optimize delivery to immune cells, and promote robust immune responses. Notably, clinical data indicate that patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors can achieve overall survival rates of approximately 34.8 months compared to just 15.7 months for traditional therapies. Despite these advancements, challenges remain, such as the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and tumor heterogeneity. Emerging evidence suggests that combining nanovaccines with immunomodulators may enhance therapeutic efficacy by overcoming these obstacles. Continued research and interdisciplinary collaboration will be essential to fully exploit the promise of nanovaccines, ultimately leading to more effective and accessible treatments for cancer patients. The future of cancer immunotherapy appears increasingly hopeful as these innovative strategies pave the way for enhanced patient outcomes and an improved quality of life in oncology.

Breaking barriers: Smart vaccine platforms for cancer immunomodulation

Despite significant advancements in cancer treatment, current therapies often fail to completely eradicate malignant cells. This shortfall underscores the urgent need to explore alternative approaches such as cancer vaccines. Leveraging the immune system's natural ability to target and kill cancer cells holds great therapeutic potential. However, the development of cancer vaccines is hindered by several challenges, including low stability, inadequate immune response activation, and the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, which limit their efficacy. Recent progress in various fields, such as click chemistry, nanotechnology, exosome engineering, and neoantigen design, offer innovative solutions to these challenges. These achievements have led to the emergence of smart vaccine platforms (SVPs), which integrate protective carriers for messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) with functionalization strategies to optimize targeted delivery. Click chemistry further enhances SVP performance by improving the encapsulation of mRNA antigens and facilitating their precise delivery to target cells. This review highlights the latest developments in SVP technologies for cancer therapy, exploring both their opportunities and challenges in advancing these transformative approaches.

Conjugation with S4 protein transduction domain enhances the immunogenicity of the peptide vaccine against breast cancer

Although peptide vaccines offer a novel venue for cancer immunotherapy, clinical success has been rather limited. Cell-penetrating peptides, due to their ability to translocate through the cell membrane, could be conjugated to the peptide vaccine to2 enhance therapeutic efficiency. The S4 transduction domain of the shaker-potassium channel was conjugated to mammaglobin-A (MamA) immunodominant epitope (MamA2.1) to verify its anticancer immunogenicity. S4-MamA2.1 peptide has demonstrated significantly higher epitope loading and stable membrane expression of HLA-A2 antigen-presenting molecules on T2 cell lines. Further, these S4-MamA2.1 treated T2 cells were able to activate naïve CD8+ T cells to induce MamA-specific cytotoxicity against breast cancer cells. Conjugation of the S4 domain has also demonstrated a slight increase in immunogenicity of lesser immunodominant MamA epitopes. The conjugation of the S4 domain to N-terminus of MamA2.1 demonstrated significantly higher immunogenicity over C-terminus conjugation. Taken together, the results of the present study suggest that conjugation of the S4 cell-penetrating peptide domain to MamA2.1 epitope enhances the peptide vaccine immunogenicity against MamA-expressing breast cancers.

Peptides as Versatile Regulators in Cancer Immunotherapy: Recent Advances, Challenges, and Future Prospects

The emergence of effective immunotherapies has revolutionized therapies for many types of cancer. However, current immunotherapy has limited efficacy in certain patient populations and displays therapeutic resistance after a period of treatment. To address these challenges, a growing number of immunotherapy drugs have been investigated in clinical and preclinical applications. The diverse functionality of peptides has made them attractive as a therapeutic modality, and the global market for peptide-based therapeutics is witnessing significant growth. Peptides can act as immunotherapeutic agents for the treatment of many malignant cancers. However, a systematic understanding of the interactions between different peptides and the host's immune system remains unclear. This review describes in detail the roles of peptides in regulating the function of the immune system for cancer immunotherapy. Initially, we systematically elaborate on the relevant mechanisms of cancer immunotherapy. Subsequently, we categorize peptide-based nanomaterials into the following three categories: peptide-based vaccines, anti-cancer peptides, and peptide-based delivery systems. We carefully analyzed the roles of these peptides in overcoming the current barriers in immunotherapy, including multiple strategies to enhance the immunogenicity of peptide vaccines, the synergistic effect of anti-cancer peptides in combination with other immune agents, and peptide assemblies functioning as immune stimulators or vehicles to deliver immune agents. Furthermore, we introduce the current status of peptide-based immunotherapy in clinical applications and discuss the weaknesses and future prospects of peptide-based materials for cancer immunotherapy. Overall, this review aims to enhance comprehension of the potential applications of peptide-based materials in cancer immunotherapy and lay the groundwork for future research and clinical applications.

Old concepts, new tricks: How peptide vaccines are reshaping cancer immunotherapy?

Over the past few decades, research on cancer immunotherapy has firmly established immune cells as key players in effective cancer treatment. Peptide vaccines directly targeting immune cells have demonstrated immense potential due to their specificity and applicability. However, developing peptide vaccines to generate tumor-reactive T cells remains challenging, primarily due to suboptimal immunogenicity and overcoming the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). In this review, we discuss various elements of effective peptide vaccines, including antigen selection, peptide epitope optimization, vaccine adjuvants, and the combination of multiple immunotherapies, in addition to recent advances in tumor neoantigens as well as epitopes bound by non-classical human leukocyte antigen (HLA) molecules, to increase the understanding of cancer peptide vaccines and provide multiple references for the design of subsequent T cell-based peptide vaccines.

IMGT/RobustpMHC: robust training for class-I MHC peptide binding prediction

The accurate prediction of peptide-major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I binding probabilities is a critical endeavor in immunoinformatics, with broad implications for vaccine development and immunotherapies. While recent deep neural network based approaches have showcased promise in peptide-MHC (pMHC) prediction, they have two shortcomings: (i) they rely on hand-crafted pseudo-sequence extraction, (ii) they do not generalize well to different datasets, which limits the practicality of these approaches. While existing methods rely on a 34 amino acid pseudo-sequence, our findings uncover the involvement of 147 positions in direct interactions between MHC and peptide. We further show that neural architectures can learn the intricacies of pMHC binding using even full sequences. To this end, we present PerceiverpMHC that is able to learn accurate representations on full-sequences by leveraging efficient transformer based architectures. Additionally, we propose IMGT/RobustpMHC that harnesses the potential of unlabeled data in improving the robustness of pMHC binding predictions through a self-supervised learning strategy. We extensively evaluate RobustpMHC on eight different datasets and showcase an overall improvement of over 6% in binding prediction accuracy compared to state-of-the-art approaches. We compile CrystalIMGT, a crystallography-verified dataset presenting a challenge to existing approaches due to significantly different pMHC distributions. Finally, to mitigate this distribution gap, we further develop a transfer learning pipeline.

Advancements and Challenges in Peptide-Based Cancer Vaccination: A Multidisciplinary Perspective

With the continuous advancements in tumor immunotherapy, researchers are actively exploring new treatment methods. Peptide therapeutic cancer vaccines have garnered significant attention for their potential in improving patient outcomes. Despite its potential, only a single peptide-based cancer vaccine has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms and current development status is crucial for advancing these vaccines. This review provides an in-depth analysis of the production principles and therapeutic mechanisms of peptide-based cancer vaccines, highlights the commonly used peptide-based cancer vaccines, and examines the synergistic effects of combining these vaccines with immunotherapy, targeted therapy, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. While some studies have yielded suboptimal results, the potential of combination therapies remains substantial. Additionally, we addressed the management and adverse events associated with peptide-based cancer vaccines, noting their relatively higher safety profile compared to traditional radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Lastly, we also discussed the roles of adjuvants and targeted delivery systems in enhancing vaccine efficacy. In conclusion, this review comprehensively outlines the current landscape of peptide-based cancer vaccination and underscores its potential as a pivotal immunotherapy approach.

The potential application of complement inhibitors-loaded nanosystem for autoimmune diseases via regulation immune balance

The complement is an important arm of the innate immune system, once activated, the complement system rapidly generates large quantities of protein fragments that are potent mediators of inflammation. Recent studies have shown that over-activated complement is the main proinflammatory system of autoimmune diseases (ADs). In addition, activated complements interact with autoantibodies, immune cells exacerbate inflammation, further worsening ADs. With the increasing threat of ADs to human health, complement-based immunotherapy has attracted wide attention. Nevertheless, efficient and targeted delivery of complement inhibitors remains a significant challenge owing to their inherent poor targeting, degradability, and low bioavailability. Nanosystems offer innovative solutions to surmount these obstacles and amplify the potency of complement inhibitors. This prime aim to present the current knowledge of complement in ADs, analyse the function of complement in the pathogenesis and treatment of ADs, we underscore the current situation of nanosystems assisting complement inhibitors in the treatment of ADs. Considering technological, physiological, and clinical validation challenges, we critically appraise the challenges for successfully translating the findings of preclinical studies of these nanosystem assisted-complement inhibitors into the clinic, and future perspectives were also summarised. (The graphical abstract is by BioRender.).

Frontiers and future of immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer: from molecular mechanisms to clinical application

Pancreatic cancer is a highly aggressive malignant tumor, that is becoming increasingly common in recent years. Despite advances in intensive treatment modalities including surgery, radiotherapy, biological therapy, and targeted therapy, the overall survival rate has not significantly improved in patients with pancreatic cancer. This may be attributed to the insidious onset, unknown pathophysiology, and poor prognosis of the disease. It is therefore essential to identify and develop more effective and safer treatments for pancreatic cancer. Tumor immunotherapy is the new and fourth pillar of anti-tumor therapy after surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Significant progress has made in the use of immunotherapy for a wide variety of malignant tumors in recent years; a breakthrough has also been made in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. This review describes the advances in immune checkpoint inhibitors, cancer vaccines, adoptive cell therapy, oncolytic virus, and matrix-depletion therapies for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. At the same time, some new potential biomarkers and potential immunotherapy combinations for pancreatic cancer are discussed. The molecular mechanisms of various immunotherapies have also been elucidated, and their clinical applications have been highlighted. The current challenges associated with immunotherapy and proposed strategies that hold promise in overcoming these limitations have also been discussed, with the aim of offering new insights into immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer.

Combination of Oncolytic Virotherapy with Different Antitumor Approaches against Glioblastoma

Glioblastoma is one of the most malignant and aggressive tumors of the central nervous system. Despite the standard therapy consisting of maximal surgical resection and chemo- and radiotherapy, the median survival of patients with this diagnosis is about 15 months. Oncolytic virus therapy is one of the promising areas for the treatment of malignant neoplasms. In this review, we have focused on emphasizing recent achievements in virotherapy, both as a monotherapy and in combination with other therapeutic schemes to improve survival rate and quality of life among patients with glioblastoma.