Abstract
Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are promising vehicles for cancer immunotherapy, with demonstrated efficacy in immune delivery and innate cell stimulation. Nevertheless, their potential has yet to be assessed in the in vivo application of peptide cancer vaccines. In this study, it is hypothesized that the immune distribution and adjuvant qualities of AuNPs could be leveraged to facilitate delivery of the ovalbumin (OVA) peptide antigen and the CpG adjuvant and enhance their therapeutic effect in a B16-OVA tumor model. AuNP delivery of OVA (AuNP-OVA) and of CpG (AuNP-CpG) enhanced the efficacy of both agents and induced strong antigen-specific responses. In addition, it is found that AuNP-OVA delivery alone, without CpG, is sufficient to promote significant antigen-specific responses, leading to subsequent anti-tumor activity and prolonged survival in both prophylactic and therapeutic in vivo tumor models. This enhanced therapeutic efficacy is likely due to the adjuvant effect of peptide coated AuNPs, as they induce inflammatory cytokine release when cultured with bone marrow dendritic cells. Overall, AuNP-mediated OVA peptide delivery can produce significant therapeutic benefits without the need of adjuvant, indicating that AuNPs are effective peptide vaccine carriers with the potential to permit the use of lower and safer adjuvant doses during vaccination.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1453-1459 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Small |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 25 2015 |
Funding
A. E. Foster and R. A. Drezek contributed equally to this work. This project was supported by the National Institutes of Health R01CA172836. J Almeida is also funded by the Keck Center of the Gulf Coast Consortia, on the Nanobiology Interdisciplinary Graduate Training Program, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) T32EB009379, as well as the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship #0940902 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Med into Grad fellowship.
Keywords
- biodistribution
- cancer
- gold nanoparticles
- immune system
- immunotherapy
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry
- General Materials Science
- Biotechnology
- Biomaterials