Immune-regulating camouflaged nanoplatforms: A promising strategy to improve cancer nano-immunotherapy

Abstract

Although nano-immunotherapy has advanced dramatically in recent times, there remain two significant hurdles related to immune systems in cancer treatment, such as (namely) inevitable immune elimination of nanoplatforms and severely immunosuppressive microenvironment with low immunogenicity, hampering the performance of nanomedicines. To address these issues, several immune-regulating camouflaged nanocomposites have emerged as prevailing strategies due to their unique characteristics and specific functionalities. In this review, we emphasize the composition, performances, and mechanisms of various immune-regulating camouflaged nanoplatforms, including polymer-coated, cell membrane-camouflaged, and exosome-based nanoplatforms to evade the immune clearance of nanoplatforms or upregulate the immune function against the tumor. Further, we discuss the applications of these immune-regulating camouflaged nanoplatforms in directly boosting cancer immunotherapy and some immunogenic cell death-inducing immunotherapeutic modalities, such as chemotherapy, photothermal therapy, and reactive oxygen species-mediated immunotherapies, highlighting the current progress and recent advancements. Finally, we conclude the article with interesting perspectives, suggesting future tendencies of these innovative camouflaged constructs towards their translation pipeline.

Keywords

• Biological camouflage
• Immunogenic cell death
• Prolonged blood circulation
• Immune-regulating
• Nanovaccine