GMMA decorated with mucin 1 Tn/STn mimetics elicit specific antibodies response and inhibit tumor growth

Carbohydrate-based therapeutic vaccines are actively pursued as targeted immunotherapy to treat cancer. Aberrant glycosylation is indeed of paramount importance in tumors, leading to the formation of "neo-epitopes", known as tumor-associated carbohydrate antigens (TACAs), crucial in cancer onset, development and spread. Accordingly, the over-simplified mucin-type O-glycans Tn and STn have been confirmed among the most promising candidates for the development of cancer vaccines. In this work, we first propose genetically manipulated bacteria outer membrane vesicles (OMVs), namely GMMA, as a vaccine formulation platform to display glycan antigens. GMMA were glycosylated with multiple copies of structurally locked Tn mimetic or STn mimetic as cancer vaccine prototypes. These constructs, in non-adjuvanted formulations, showed sounding immunogenic properties in vivo and impressive efficacy in a mouse model of aggressive triple-negative breast cancer. This example of tailor-made therapeutic vaccine might revolutionize the approach to cancer therapy.

Peptide Dendrimer-Based Antibacterial Agents: Synthesis and Applications

Pathogenic bacteria cause the deaths of millions of people every year. With the development of antibiotics, hundreds and thousands of people's lives have been saved. Nevertheless, bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics, rendering them insensitive to antibiotics over time. Peptides containing specific amino acids can be used as antibacterial agents; however, they can be easily degraded by proteases in vivo. To address these issues, branched peptide dendrimers are now being considered as good antibacterial agents due to their high efficacy, resistance to protease degradation, and low cytotoxicity. The ease with which peptide dendrimers can be synthesized and modified makes them accessible for use in various biological and nonbiological fields. That is, peptide dendrimers hold a promising future as antibacterial agents with prolonged efficacy without bacterial resistance development. Their in vivo stability and multivalence allow them to effectively target multi-drug-resistant strains and prevent biofilm formation. Thus, it is interesting to have an overview of the development and applications of peptide dendrimers in antibacterial research, including the possibility of employing machine learning approaches for the design of AMPs and dendrimers. This review summarizes the synthesis and applications of peptide dendrimers as antibacterial agents. The challenges and perspectives of using peptide dendrimers as the antibacterial agents are also discussed.

Immunomodulatory glycomedicine: Introducing next generation cancer glycovaccines

Cancer remains a leading cause of death worldwide due to the lack of safer and more effective therapies. Cancer vaccines developed from neoantigens are an emerging strategy to promote protective and therapeutic anti-cancer immune responses. Advances in glycomics and glycoproteomics have unveiled several cancer-specific glycosignatures, holding tremendous potential to foster effective cancer glycovaccines. However, the immunosuppressive nature of tumours poses a major obstacle to vaccine-based immunotherapy. Chemical modification of tumour associated glycans, conjugation with immunogenic carriers and administration in combination with potent immune adjuvants constitute emerging strategies to address this bottleneck. Moreover, novel vaccine vehicles have been optimized to enhance immune responses against otherwise poorly immunogenic cancer epitopes. Nanovehicles have shown increased affinity for antigen presenting cells (APCs) in lymph nodes and tumours, while reducing treatment toxicity. Designs exploiting glycans recognized by APCs have further enhanced the delivery of antigenic payloads, improving glycovaccine's capacity to elicit innate and acquired immune responses. These solutions show potential to reduce tumour burden, while generating immunological memory. Building on this rationale, we provide a comprehensive overview on emerging cancer glycovaccines, emphasizing the potential of nanotechnology in this context. A roadmap towards clinical implementation is also delivered foreseeing advances in glycan-based immunomodulatory cancer medicine.

Recent advances in peptide-based therapeutic strategies for breast cancer treatment

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related fatalities in female worldwide. Effective therapies with low side effects for breast cancer treatment and prevention are, accordingly, urgently required. Targeting anticancer materials, breast cancer vaccines and anticancer drugs have been studied for many years to decrease side effects, prevent breast cancer and suppress tumors, respectively. There are abundant evidences to demonstrate that peptide-based therapeutic strategies, coupling of good safety and adaptive functionalities are promising for breast cancer therapy. In recent years, peptide-based vectors have been paid attention in targeting breast cancer due to their specific binding to corresponding receptors overexpressed in cell. To overcome the low internalization, cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) could be selected to increase the penetration due to the electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions between CPPs and cell membranes. Peptide-based vaccines are at the forefront of medical development and presently, 13 types of main peptide vaccines for breast cancer are being studied on phase III, phase II, phase I/II and phase I clinical trials. In addition, peptide-based vaccines including delivery vectors and adjuvants have been implemented. Many peptides have recently been used in clinical treatments for breast cancer. These peptides show different anticancer mechanisms and some novel peptides could reverse the resistance of breast cancer to susceptibility. In this review, we will focus on current studies of peptide-based targeting vectors, CPPs, peptide-based vaccines and anticancer peptides for breast cancer therapy and prevention.

Glycoconjugate Nanoparticle-Based Systems in Cancer Immunotherapy: Novel Designs and Recent Updates

For many years, cell-surface glycans (in particular, Tumor-Associated Carbohydrate Antigens, TACAs) have been the target of both passive and active anticancer immunotherapeutic design. Recent advances in immunotherapy as a treatment for a variety of malignancies has revolutionized anti-tumor treatment regimens. Checkpoint inhibitors, Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cells, Oncolytic virus therapy, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines have been developed and many approvals have led to remarkable outcomes in a subset of patients. However, many of these therapies are very selective for specific patient populations and hence the search for improved therapeutics and refinement of techniques for delivery are ongoing and fervent research areas. Most of these agents are directed at protein/peptide epitopes, but glycans-based targets are gaining in popularity, and a handful of approved immunotherapies owe their activity to oligosaccharide targets. In addition, nanotechnology and nanoparticle-derived systems can help improve the delivery of these agents to specific organs and cell types based on tumor-selective approaches. This review will first outline some of the historical beginnings of this research area and subsequently concentrate on the last 5 years of work. Based on the progress in therapeutic design, predictions can be made as to what the future holds for increasing the percentage of positive patient outcomes for optimized systems.

A brief insight to the role of glyconanotechnology in modern day diagnostics and therapeutics

Carbohydrate-protein and carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions are very important for various biological processes. Although the magnitude of these interactions is low compared to that of protein-protein interaction, the magnitude can be boosted by multivalent approach known as glycocluster effect. Nanoparticle platform is one of the best ways to present diverse glycoforms in multivalent manner and thus, the field of glyconanotechnology has emerged as an important field of research considering their potential applications in diagnostics and therapeutics. Considerable advances in the field have been achieved through development of novel techniques, use of diverse metallic and non-metallic cores for better efficacy and application of ever-increasing number of carbohydrate ligands for site-specific interaction. The present review encompasses the recent developments in the area of glyconanotechnology and their future promise as diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

Design, Synthetic Strategies, and Therapeutic Applications of Heterofunctional Glycodendrimers

Glycodendrimers have attracted considerable interest in the field of dendrimer sciences owing to their plethora of implications in biomedical applications. This is primarily due to the fact that cell surfaces expose a wide range of highly diversified glycan architectures varying by the nature of the sugars, their number, and their natural multiantennary structures. This particular situation has led to cancer cell metastasis, pathogen recognition and adhesion, and immune cell communications that are implicated in vaccine development. The diverse nature and complexity of multivalent carbohydrate-protein interactions have been the impetus toward the syntheses of glycodendrimers. Since their inception in 1993, chemical strategies toward glycodendrimers have constantly evolved into highly sophisticated methodologies. This review constitutes the first part of a series of papers dedicated to the design, synthesis, and biological applications of heterofunctional glycodendrimers. Herein, we highlight the most common synthetic approaches toward these complex molecular architectures and present modern applications in nanomolecular therapeutics and synthetic vaccines.

Aberrant glycosylation patterns on cancer cells: Therapeutic opportunities for glycodendrimers/metallodendrimers oncology

Despite exciting discoveries and progresses in drug design against cancer, its cure is still rather elusive and remains one of the humanities major challenges in health care. The safety profiles of common small molecule anti-cancer therapeutics are less than at acceptable levels and limiting deleterious side-effects have to be urgently addressed. This is mainly caused by their incapacity to differentiate healthy cells from cancer cells; hence, the use of high dosage becomes necessary. One possible solution to improve the therapeutic windows of anti-cancer agents undoubtedly resides in modern nanotechnology. This review presents a discussion concerning multivalent carbohydrate-protein interactions as this topic pertains to the fundamental aspects that lead glycoscientists to tackle glyconanoparticles. The second section describes the detailed properties of cancer cells and how their aberrant glycan surfaces differ from those of healthy cells. The third section briefly describes the immune systems, both innate and adaptative, because the numerous displays of cell surface protein receptors necessitate to be addressed from the multivalent angles, a strength full characteristic of nanoparticles. The next chapter presents recent advances in glyconanotechnologies, including glycodendrimers in particular, as they apply to glycobiology and carbohydrate-based cancer vaccines. This was followed by an overview of metallodendrimers and how this rapidly evolving field may contribute to our arsenal of therapeutic tools to fight cancer. This article is categorized under: Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Emerging Technologies Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Nanoscale Systems in Biology Therapeutic Approaches and Drug Discovery > Nanomedicine for Oncologic Disease.

Recent Advances in Peptide-Based Approaches for Cancer Treatment

BACKGROUND

Peptide-based pharmaceuticals have recently experienced a renaissance due to their ability to fill the gap between the two main classes of available drugs, small molecules and biologics. Peptides combine the high potency and selectivity typical of large proteins with some of the characteristic advantages of small molecules such as synthetic accessibility, stability and the potential of oral bioavailability.

METHODS

In the present manuscript we review the recent literature on selected peptide-based approaches for cancer treatment, emphasizing recent advances, advantages and challenges of each strategy.

RESULTS

One of the applications in which peptide-based approaches have grown rapidly is cancer therapy, with a focus on new and established targets. We describe, with selected examples, some of the novel peptide-based methods for cancer treatment that have been developed in the last few years, ranging from naturally-occurring and modified peptides to peptidedrug conjugates, peptide nanomaterials and peptide-based vaccines.

CONCLUSION

This review brings out the emerging role of peptide-based strategies in oncology research, critically analyzing the advantages and limitations of these approaches and the potential for their development as effective anti-cancer therapies.

A Graphene-Based Glycan Biosensor for Electrochemical Label-Free Detection of a Tumor-Associated Antibody

The study describes development of a glycan biosensor for detection of a tumor-associated antibody. The glycan biosensor is built on an electrochemically activated/oxidized graphene screen-printed electrode (GSPE). Oxygen functionalities were subsequently applied for covalent immobilization of human serum albumin (HSA) as a natural nanoscaffold for covalent immobilization of Thomsen-nouvelle (Tn) antigen (GalNAc-O-Ser/Thr) to be fully available for affinity interaction with its analyte-a tumor-associated antibody. The step by step building process of glycan biosensor development was comprehensively characterized using a battery of techniques (scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, contact angle measurements, secondary ion mass spectrometry, surface plasmon resonance, Raman and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy). Results suggest that electrochemical oxidation of graphene SPE preferentially oxidizes only the surface of graphene flakes within the graphene SPE. Optimization studies revealed the following optimal parameters: activation potential of +1.5 V vs. Ag/AgCl/3 M KCl, activation time of 60 s and concentration of HSA of 0.1 g L^-1. Finally, the glycan biosensor was built up able to selectively and sensitively detect its analyte down to low aM concentration. The binding preference of the glycan biosensor was in an agreement with independent surface plasmon resonance analysis.

Bench-to-bedside translation of dendrimers: Reality or utopia? A concise analysis

Nanomedicine, which is an application of nanotechnologies in healthcare is developed to improve the treatments and lives of patients suffering from a range of disorders and to increase the successes of drug candidates. Within the nanotechnology universe, the remarkable unique and tunable properties of dendrimers have made them promising tools for diverse biomedical applications such as drug delivery, gene therapy and diagnostic. Up-to-date, very few dendrimers has yet gained regulatory approval for systemic administration, why? In this critical review, we briefly focus on the list of desired basic dendrimer requirements for decision-making purpose by the scientists (go/no-go decision), in early development stages, to become clinical candidates, and to move towards Investigational New Drugs (IND) application submission. In addition, the successful translation between research and clinic should be performed by the implementation of a simple roadmap to jump the 'valley of death' successfully.