Peptide therapeutics and assemblies for cancer immunotherapy

Li, MM (Li, Mingming)^{[ 1 ]} ; Zhao, XR (Zhao, Xinran)^{[ 1 ]} ; Dai, JF (Dai, Jianfang)^{[ 1 ]} ; Yu, ZL (Yu, Zhilin)^{[ 1 ]}

SCIENCE CHINA-MATERIALS, 2019, 62(11): 1759-1781 特刊: SI

DOI: 10.1007/s40843-019-9451-7

摘要

Immunotherapy has been considered as one of the most promising strategies for protection against cancer cells due to the tremendous advantages arising from host immune defense. However, establishing versatile strategies with high biosafety and the capability for efficient modulation of immune responses remains challenging. The structural features resembling native proteins of peptides bestow their great potential to address these challenges via either directly eliciting immune responses or improving the efficacy of therapeutics. This review summarizes the progress of cancer immunotherapy achieved based on the strategies utilizing short peptides as therapeutic agents or peptide assemblies as delivery scaffolds, beyond long sequences like proteins and polypeptides. Starting from a brief introduction of cancer immunotherapy, we outline the peptide sequences in terms of their specific functions including immune checkpoint blockades, vaccine antigens and adjuvants. We particularly high-light peptide-based nanomaterials as scaffolds for targeting delivery or co-delivery of multiple therapeutics to enhance immunogenicity. The extraordinary therapeutic efficacy of the limited examples covered here demonstrates the great potency of the peptide-based strategies in modulating immune responses, thus potentially facilitating the clinical translation of cancer immunotherapy in the future.