Nanovaccines in Cancer Immunotherapy: Lymph Node-Targeted Strategies and Mechanistic Insights

Cancer immunotherapy has been a rapidly growing therapeutic approach, with nanovaccines offering new opportunities to improve antigen delivery and activate immune responses. Nevertheless, traditional cancer vaccines are generally under-immunogenic and ineffective in lymphoid targeting. This article reviews progress in nanotechnology-based vaccine platforms, with a special emphasis on lymph node-targeting nanovaccines for cancer management and therapy.

We systematically reviewed the recent literature on nanovaccine delivery systems, including liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, and mRNA-based formulations. The emphasis was on immunological mechanisms, antigen presentation pathways, and lymphatic targeting strategies.

Nanovaccines can deliver tumor antigens and adjuvants together to lymphoid tissues, enhancing antigen uptake, dendritic cell activation, and T-cell priming. Systems, such as lipid nanoparticles, artificial dendritic networks, and CpG- or STING-charged nanocarriers, have been shown to exhibit enhanced therapeutic performance in both preclinical and early clinical trials. mRNA-4157 and BNT111 are clinical candidates showing encouraging results in melanoma and other cancer trials.

Nanovaccine platforms can potentially overcome some constraints of conventional vaccines by enhancing lymph node targeting, antigen stability, and immunogenicity. Further research in this field could further advance targeted cancer immunotherapy.