Let cancer cells wear a "silica coat" to make cancer vaccine

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Let cancer cells wear a “silica coat” to make cancer vaccine

Let cancer cells wear a “silica coat” to make cancer vaccine.

Put a silica coat on cancer cells to make cancer vaccines, which can eradicate tumors and can be preserved for a long time.

Cancer is a medical problem that human beings still cannot overcome. However, the emergence of immunotherapy has reversed this situation and brought new dawn to the majority of cancer patients.

Not only that, but the evidence that cancer can trigger tumor-specific immune responses has further stimulated the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines .

However, due to the lack of widely expressed tumor antigens in many cancers, the clinical efficacy and application of cancer vaccines have been hindered.

In order to avoid this situation, autologous tumor cells have been used to construct polyclonal personalized cancer vaccines to address the lack of ubiquitously expressed tumor antigens and the risk of immune escape from treatment against a single antigen.

On November 1, 2021, researchers from the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center published a research paper titled Cancer vaccines from cryogenically silicified tumour cells functionalized with pathogen-associated molecular patterns in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering .

The study demonstrated that cancer vaccines can be made by low-temperature silicification of tumor cells , storing tumor antigens in a nano-silica layer, and then modifying the silicified surface with pathogen-related molecular patterns.

These pathogen-simulating cells activate dendritic cells, enhance the internalization, processing and presentation of tumor antigens to T cells, and lead to the complete eradication of tumors in mouse models, extending the life of tumor mouse models.

Let cancer cells wear a "silica coat" to make cancer vaccine

The development of any or all forms of cancer vaccines is an important goal for scientists, and some progress has been made in this regard. For example, the HPV vaccine can be very effective in preventing cervical cancer in women.

But it is worth noting that before a vaccine that directly fights cancer can be developed, more work needs to be done-either to prevent tumors from forming, or to eliminate them after they have formed.

Most of these studies are based on the idea of stimulating the immune system to make it more active in chasing tumor cells.

Unfortunately, the human body does not express the universal tumor antigens that can be used to make this vaccine. In this study, the research team is building on the basis of previous studies.

Previous studies have shown that autologous tumor cells ( tumor cells collected from the same patient) can be used to make polyclonal personalized vaccines against certain types of cancer. This solves the problem of having to find a universally expressed antigen.

Next, the research team tried a new method, using autologous tumor cells coated with silica-more specifically, by low-temperature silicification of tumor cells .

This process involves the preservation of tumor antigens obtained from the patient by covering a very small silica layer, which can effectively extend the preservation time of tumor antigens.

Let cancer cells wear a "silica coat" to make cancer vaccine Schematic diagram of low-temperature siliconized tumor vaccine production

Immediately afterwards, the researchers added another pathogen-like coating on the silicified surface, and modified the silicified surface with pathogen-related molecular patterns. The role of these coatings is to activate dendritic cells, and dendritic cells can enhance the internalization, processing and presentation of tumor antigens to T cells, and ultimately allow the body’s immune system to fight tumor tissues.

Let cancer cells wear a "silica coat" to make cancer vaccine Surface coating activates dendritic cells and enhances anti-tumor function

In order to further verify whether the vaccine is effective at the individual level, the researchers developed a personalized vaccine for mouse models of ovarian cancer. They found that the effect of the vaccine was consistent with expectations. T cells became more aggressive when attacking cancer cells, resulting in tumor and antigen-specific T cell immunity. The end result is that the tumors in the mice are completely eliminated.

Let cancer cells wear a "silica coat" to make cancer vaccine In mouse tumor models, low-temperature siliconized cancer vaccine successfully eradicated tumor tissue

Not only that, the researchers also found that this tumor vaccine and the classic anti-cancer drug cisplatin have a synergistic effect and promote the treatment of cancer patients! More importantly, this modular approach for cancer vaccine development is not only limited to ovarian cancer, but can also be widely adapted to other tumor types.

Low-temperature siliconized cancer vaccine can work synergistically with cisplatin to enhance the lethality of cancer cells

All in all, this research has developed a cancer vaccine based on low-temperature siliconization technology . This type of vaccine uses autologous tumor cells to obtain a polyclonal personalized vaccine for the patient’s cancer type.

Siliconization and surface modification make this kind of tumor vaccines easy to store at room temperature without losing efficacy, and may help to make individualized cancer vaccines in different types of tumors.

Paper link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-021-00795-w

Let cancer cells wear a “silica coat” to make cancer vaccine.

(source:internet, reference only)

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