Unprecedented Chiral Nanovaccines for Significantly Enhanced Cancer Immunotherapy

As a representative strategy for cancer immunotherapy, cancer nanovaccines have aroused enormous interest. Although various nanovaccines have been developed to promote immunogenicity and improve the therapeutic efficacy, chiral nanovaccines have been less explored as of yet. Chiral carbon dots (CDs) have similar size to proteins, abundant functional groups, and nanoscale chirality, which can not only carry and deliver antigens but also induce cellular and humoral immune responses and can play dual roles of nanovehicles and immune adjuvants. Herein, we demonstrate that the chiral nanovaccines (l/d-OVA) could be conveniently fabricated by utilizing chiral CDs as carriers and immune adjuvants and ovalbumin (OVA) as an antigen model. l/d-OVA nanovaccines could be effectively internalized by mouse bone-marrow-derived dendritic cells (BMDCs), boost BMDC maturation, efficiently cross-present to T cells, and suppress the growth of B16-OVA melanoma. This work illustrates the hopeful potential of chiral CDs as effective vectors for loading protein cargos and delivering them into cancer cells.