Uniform Polymeric Nanovaccine Platform for Improving the Availability and Efficacy of Neoantigen Peptides

Abstract

Personalized cancer vaccines targeting specific neoantigens have been envisioned as one of the most promising approaches in cancer immunotherapy. However, the physicochemical variability of the identified neoantigens limits their efficacy as well as vaccine manufacturing in a uniform format. Herein, we developed a uniform nanovaccine platform based on poly(2-oxazoline)s (POx) to chemically conjugate neoantigen peptides, regardless of their physicochemical properties. This vaccine system could self-assemble into nanoparticles with uniform size (around 50 nm) and improve antigen accumulation as well as infiltration in the lymph node to increase antigen presentation. In vivo vaccination using this system conjugated with three predicted peptide neoantigen peptides from the MC38 tumor cell line induced 100% robust CD8 + T cell responses and superior tumor clearance compared to free peptides. This POx-based vaccine carrier represents a generalizable approach to increase the availability and efficacy of screened neoantigen peptides for a personalized cancer vaccine.