Tumor Subtype Determines Therapeutic Response to Chimeric Polypeptide Nanoparticle-based Chemotherapy in Pten-deleted Mouse Models of Sarcoma

Advancements in therapeutic approaches for malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor

Tweetable abstract Emerging targeted therapies offer hope for malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor. Innovative drug delivery enhances potential treatments. #MPNST #TargetedTherapies #TherapeuticDelivery.

Nanomaterial Technology and Soft Tissue Sarcomas

Soft tissue sarcomas (STSs) are relatively rare heterogeneous solid tumors of the mesenchymal origin. They account for approximately 1% of all malignant tumors in adults and have more than 70 histological subtypes. Consequently, the rarity and heterogeneity of STSs make their diagnosis and treatment very challenging. Nanotechnology has attracted increasing attention from researchers due to the unique physicochemical and biological properties of nanomaterials with potential medical applications as nanoprobes, drug delivery systems, photosensitizers, radioenhancers, antitumor agents, and their combinations for cancer diagnosis and treatment. This review discusses the progress made in the use of nanotechnology for the diagnosis and treatment of STSs and highlights future prospects of the STS multimodality therapy.

Therapeutic nanocarriers comprising extracellular matrix-inspired peptides and polysaccharides

INTRODUCTION

The extracellular matrix (ECM) is vital for cell and tissue development. Given its importance, extensive work has been conducted to develop biomaterials and drug delivery vehicles that capture features of ECM structure and function.

AREAS COVERED

This review highlights recent developments of ECM-inspired nanocarriers and their exploration for drug and gene delivery applications. Nanocarriers that are inspired by or created from primary components of the ECM (e.g. elastin, collagen, hyaluronic acid (HA), or combinations of these) are explicitly covered. An update on current clinical trials employing elastin-like proteins is also included.

EXPERT OPINION

Novel ECM-inspired nanoscale structures and conjugates continue to be of great interest in the materials science and bioengineering communities. Hyaluronic acid nanocarrier systems in particular are widely employed due to the functional activity of HA in mediating a large number of disease states. In contrast, collagen-like peptide nanocarriers are an emerging drug delivery platform with potential relevance to a myriad of ECM-related diseases, making their continued study most pertinent. Elastin-like peptide nanocarriers have a well-established tolerability and efficacy track record in preclinical analyses that has motivated their recent advancement into the clinical arena.

Divergent immune landscapes of primary and syngeneic Kras-driven mouse tumor models

Immune cells play critical functions in cancer, and mice with intact immune systems are vital to understanding tumor immunology. Both genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs) and syngeneic cell transplant approaches use immunocompetent mice to define immune-dependent events in tumor development and progression. Due to their rapid and reproducible nature, there is expanded interest in developing new syngeneic tools from established primary tumor models. However, few studies have examined the extent that syngeneic tumors reflect the immune profile of their originating primary models. Here, we describe comprehensive immunophenotyping of two well-established GEMMs and four new syngeneic models derived from these parental primary tumors. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic analysis comparing immune landscapes between primary and orthotopic syngeneic tumors. These models all use the same well-defined human-relevant driver mutations, arise at identical orthotopic locations, and are generated in mice of the same background strain. This allows for a direct and focused comparison of tumor immune landscapes in carefully controlled mouse models. We identify key differences between the immune infiltrate of GEMM models and their corresponding syngeneic tumors. Most notable is the divergence of T cell populations, with different proportions of CD8+ T cells and regulatory T cells across several models. We also observe immune variation across syngeneic tumors derived from the same primary model. These findings highlight the importance of immune variance across mouse modeling approaches, which has strong implications for the design of rigorous and reproducible translational studies.