Diverse drug delivery systems for the enhancement of cancer immunotherapy: an overview

Xu Liu; Yang Cheng; Yao Mu; Zhaohan Zhang; Dan Tian; Yunpeng Liu; Xuejun Hu; Ti Wen

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2024.1328145

Diverse drug delivery systems for the enhancement of cancer immunotherapy: an overview

Front Immunol. 2024 Jan 17:15:1328145. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1328145. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Xu Liu¹, Yang Cheng¹, Yao Mu¹, Zhaohan Zhang², Dan Tian³, Yunpeng Liu^{4

5

6

7}, Xuejun Hu¹, Ti Wen^{4

5

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Respiratory and Infectious Disease of Geriatrics, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
² No.20 High School, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
³ Department of Thoracic Surgery, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Anticancer Drugs and Biotherapy of Liaoning Province, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
⁵ Department of Medical Oncology, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
⁶ Liaoning Province Clinical Research Center for Cancer, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.
⁷ Clinical Cancer Treatment and Research Center of Shenyang, The First Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China.

Abstract

Despite the clear benefits demonstrated by immunotherapy, there is still an inevitable off-target effect resulting in serious adverse immune reactions. In recent years, the research and development of Drug Delivery System (DDS) has received increased prominence. In decades of development, DDS has demonstrated the ability to deliver drugs in a precisely targeted manner to mitigate side effects and has the advantages of flexible control of drug release, improved pharmacokinetics, and drug distribution. Therefore, we consider that combining cancer immunotherapy with DDS can enhance the anti-tumor ability. In this paper, we provide an overview of the latest drug delivery strategies in cancer immunotherapy and briefly introduce the characteristics of DDS based on nano-carriers (liposomes, polymer nano-micelles, mesoporous silica, extracellular vesicles, etc.) and coupling technology (ADCs, PDCs and targeted protein degradation). Our aim is to show readers a variety of drug delivery platforms under different immune mechanisms, and analyze their advantages and limitations, to provide more superior and accurate targeting strategies for cancer immunotherapy.

Keywords: cancer immunotherapy; coupled drugs; drug delivery; multidrug combination; nanoparticles; protein degradation.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Drug Carriers / therapeutic use
Drug Delivery Systems
Humans
Immunotherapy / methods
Nanoparticles*
Neoplasms* / drug therapy

Substances

Drug Carriers

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81972197 to XH), Supporting the high-quality development of science and technology funding project at China Medical University (2023020792-JH2/202 to TW), Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Bureau (202201011482 to DT) and Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province (2023A1515010485 to DT).