A general strategy towards personalized nanovaccines based on fluoropolymers for post-surgical cancer immunotherapy.

Xu, Jun; Lv, Jia; Zhuang, Qi; Yang, Zongjin; Cao, Zhiqin; Xu, Ligeng; Pei, Pei; Wang, Chenya; Wu, Hanfei; Dong, Ziliang; Chao, Yu; Wang, Chao; Yang, Kai; Peng, Rui; Cheng, Yiyun; Liu, Zhuang

Cancer metastases and recurrence after surgical resection remain an important cause of treatment failure. Here we demonstrate a general strategy to fabricate personalized nanovaccines based on a cationic fluoropolymer for post-surgical cancer immunotherapy. Nanoparticles formed by mixing the fluoropolymer with a model antigen ovalbumin, induce dendritic cell maturation via the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4)-mediated signalling pathway, and promote antigen transportation into the cytosol of dendritic cells, which leads to an effective antigen cross-presentation. Such a nanovaccine inhibits established ovalbumin-expressing B16-OVA melanoma. More importantly, a mix of the fluoropolymer with cell membranes from resected autologous primary tumours synergizes with checkpoint blockade therapy to inhibit post-surgical tumour recurrence and metastases in two subcutaneous tumour models and an orthotopic breast cancer tumour. Furthermore, in the orthotopic tumour model, we observed a strong immune memory against tumour rechallenge. Our work offers a simple and general strategy for the preparation of personalized cancer vaccines to prevent post-operative cancer recurrence and metastasis.