Engineering nanoparticles for cancer immunotherapy: Current achievements, key considerations and future perspectives

Abstract

Cancer immunotherapies, which rely on training or stimulating our immune system, are revolutionizing the way of cancer treatment. In recent years, these revolutionary weapons driven by immune mechanisms in the anti-cancer war provide hope of ultimately defeating cancer. Although many types of immunotherapeutic drugs have become available, intrinsic limitations associated with drug delivery, dose-limiting toxicity, poor tumor permeability, low uptake rates, and low response rates have hindered the widespread application of immunotherapeutic drugs. Nanomaterials due to their easy modifications, large drug loading capacity, precise targeting, and controlled release of immunomodulatory agents offer the possibility to overcome the drawbacks of traditional immunotherapy efficiently and safely. In this review, we summarize three main classes of novel nanomaterials (nature-derived, inorganic, and organic) that are used to improve or enable the preclinical and/or clinical success of immunotherapies during the last two decades. Particularly, we focus on the intermarriage of these nanomaterials-based immunotherapies with chemo, photothermal, photodynamic, radio, and gene therapies. Lastly, we briefly discuss the trajectory, immune cell targeting, infiltration, and immune-related adverse events, and how these combined cancer immunotherapies can be modulated to address unsolved challenges in the future.