Progress in the development of mRNA vaccine and its delivery systems for anti-tumor immunotherapy

Abstract

Due to the drawbacks of low specificity and high risk of side effects of traditional anti-tumor treatments in clinical practice, novel anti-tumor immunotherapy has received attention and has been gradually applied. Tumor immunotherapy is to enhance the anti-tumor immune response by regulating the body’s immune system in order to achieve control and killing of tumors. Tumor immunotherapies include immune checkpoint blockade therapy, over-the-counter cellular immunotherapy and tumor vaccines. Among them, the tumor vaccine stimulates the immune system to produce specific immune cells or antibodies by delivering tumor cell-specific antigens thereby eliminating the tumor cells for the purpose of treating the tumor. In recent years, The field of mRNA vaccines is developing rapidly, and the required mRNA in the synthesis and preparation of the process has been developed and matured, laying a good foundation for the research of tumor mRNA vaccine. Because of the fact that mRNA is easily degraded and cannot enter the cell autonomously, this vaccine requires a suitable delivery vehicle to be successfully taken up by the cell to be effective. Therefore, the development of mRNA vaccine delivery systems has become critical for their better utilization, which is also an important part of whether mRNA vaccines can be developed and utilized for the clinical stage in the field of tumor therapy. This paper briefly introduced the immunotherapeutic methods for tumors, types of tumor vaccines and the mechanism of action and preparation methods of tumor mRNA vaccines, reviewed the research progress and related applications of mRNA vaccines and their common delivery systems in immunotherapy for tumor treatment, and summarized the tumor mRNA vaccines that entered into the phase of clinical trials with the aim of providing assistance for the research of mRNA vaccines for tumors in the future.

Keywords

• |mrna vaccine|delivery system|anti-tumor therapy|immunotherapy