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Updated: Nov 16, 2025
Fabrication of Anisotropic Polymeric Artificial Antigen Presenting Cells for CD8+ T Cell Activation
Published on: October 12, 2018
Engineering Nanoscale Artificial Antigen-Presenting Cells by Metabolic Dendritic Cell Labeling to Potentiate Cancer
Ping Xiao1,2, Jue Wang1,2, Zitong Zhao1
1State Key Laboratory of Drug Research and Center of Pharmaceutics, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201203, China.
Abstract:
Nanoscale artificial antigen-presenting cells (aAPCs) are promising to activate T cells directly for cancer immunotherapy, while feasible and flexible strategy to develop nanoscale aAPCs remains highly desirable. Metabolic glycoengineering is used to decorate chemical tags on cells which enables bioorthogonal chemical conjugation of functional molecules. Herein, we develop a nanoscale aAPC by metabolic dendritic cell (DC) labeling to mobilize T-cell based antitumor immunity. We coat azido-labeled DC membrane on imiquimod-loaded polymeric nanoparticles and sequentially modify anti-CD3ε antibody via click chemistry. The nanoscale aAPCs perform improved distribution in lymph nodes and stimulate T cells and resident APCs. Significant inhibition of tumor inoculation and growth is observed after the vaccination, which can be further improved by combining antiprogrammed cell death receptor 1 (PD1) therapy. Our results demonstrate the promising application of metabolically labeled DCs for designing nanoscale aAPCs, which provide a simple and general strategy to potentiate cancer immunotherapy.
