Immunotherapy of Malignant Glioma by Noninvasive Administration of TLR9 Agonist CpG Nano‐Immunoadjuvant

• Published in: Advanced science 2022-05, Vol.9 (13), p.e2103689-n/a
• Main Authors: Wei, Jingjing, Wu, Di, Zhao, Songsong, Shao, Yu, Xia, Yifeng, Ni, Dawei, Qiu, Xinyun, Zhang, Jinping, Chen, Jian, Meng, Fenghua, Zhong, Zhiyuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adjuvants, Immunologic - therapeutic use; Animals; Antigens; Apolipoproteins; Bone marrow; brain tumor; Cancer; Clinical trials; Dendritic cells; Glioma - drug therapy; immunoadjuvant; Immunologic Factors - therapeutic use; Immunotherapy; Lymphatic system; Medical prognosis; Melanoma; Mice; Nanoparticles; Peptides; Pharmacokinetics; polymersomes; targeted delivery; Toll-Like Receptor 9 - agonists; Tumor necrosis factor-TNF; Vaccines
• ISSN: 2198-3844; 2198-3844
• DOI: 10.1002/advs.202103689

Immunotherapy with toll like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist CpG ODN offers an emergent strategy to treat life‐threatening malignant glioma. CpG is typically applied invasively by intracranial and intrathecal administration which induces not only poor compliance and lessened potency but also possibly strong adverse effects and immunotoxicity. Here, it is reported that immunotherapy of murine LCPN glioma is greatly boosted by polymersome‐steered intravenous and intranasal brain delivery of CpG. CpG is efficiently loaded in apolipoprotein E peptide‐directed polymersomes to give blood‐brain barrier permeable and glioma and cervical lymph node‐homing CpG nano‐immunoadjuvant (t‐NanoCpG) which strongly stimulates the maturation of dendritic cells, antigen cross‐presentation, and production of proinflammatory cytokines in vivo. Intriguingly, both intravenous and intranasal administration of t‐NanoCpG brings about significant survival benefits in murine LCPN glioma‐bearing mice while free CpG and nontargeted CpG nano‐immunoadjuvant (NanoCpG) afford modest therapeutic effects. Moreover, combination of t‐NanoCpG with radiotherapy further boosts the immunotherapeutic effects leading to more improved survival rate of mice. This intelligent brain‐permeable nano‐immunoadjuvant provides a new, minimally invasive and highly potent strategy for immunotherapy of glioma. This work discloses a blood‐brain‐barrier (BBB)‐permeable, glioma, and cervical lymph node‐homing CpG nano‐immunoadjuvant (t‐NanoCpG) that either alone or combining with radiotherapy induces strong immunotherapeutic effects, leading to significant survival benefits in malignant murine glioma‐bearing mice. t‐NanoCpG provides a new, minimally invasive, and highly potent strategy for immunotherapy of glioma.