Oxygen-carrying nanovaccine potentiates cancer immunotherapy for heterogeneous solid tumors

The heterogeneity of cancer stem cells and the immunosuppressive hypoxic microenvironment are key challenges in the development of therapeutic vaccines for solid tumors. In this study, oxygen was attempted as an adjuvant to investigate the enhancing immunotherapeutic efficacy of cancer nanovaccines. Lipid-encapsulated oxygen nanobubbles (Lipo-NBs-O₂) that co-modified with anti-CD3 and anti-epidermal growth factor receptor antibodies (2P@Lipo-NBs-O₂) was developed enabling T cell-tumor cell bridging. BMS 202, a programmed cell death 1/programmed cell death 1 Ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor, was loaded yielding 2P@Lipo-BMS-NBs-O₂, which was found to reduce the expression levels hypoxia-inducible factor-1α and PD-L1, synergistically enhanced the pharmacodynamics of BMS 202, meanwhile, enhanced cytotoxic T-cell infiltration. Combined technology of oxygen delivery and T cell redirection effectively enhances cancer immunotherapy. Further incorporation of a fused cytomembrane (FM) from dendritic and B16F10 cells produced FM-2P@Lipo-BMS-NBs-O₂, which exhibited superior heterogeneous tumor growth suppression, reduced stemness gene expression, increased CD8⁺ T-cell infiltration, and elevated IFN-γ levels in serum. Oxygen-carrying nanovaccine possess the features of oxygen delivery, T cell redirection and FM coating, represents full activation of T-cell function and a potent reduction of tumor stemness, offering a promising strategy for the treatment of highly heterogeneous solid tumors.