Abstract
Dendritic cell-based cancer immunotherapy requires tumour antigens to be delivered efficiently into dendritic cells and their migration to be monitored in vivo. Nanoparticles have been explored as carriers for antigen delivery, but applications have been limited by the toxicity of the solvents used to make nanoparticles, and by the need to use transfection agents to deliver nanoparticles into cells. Here we show that an iron oxide–zinc oxide core–shell nanoparticle can deliver carcinoembryonic antigen into dendritic cells while simultaneously acting as an imaging agent. The nanoparticle–antigen complex is efficiently taken up by dendritic cells within one hour and can be detected in vitro by confocal microscopy and in vivo by magnetic resonance imaging. Mice immunized with dendritic cells containing the nanoparticle–antigen complex showed enhanced tumour antigen specific T-cell responses, delayed tumour growth and better survival than controls.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Pioneer Research Center Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2011-0001715). Y.K.K. was supported by the Leap Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (2011-0016497) and the Industrial Core Technology Development Program funded by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (10033183). S.Y.S. and N.H.C. were supported by a grant from the Innovative Research Institute of Cell Therapy funded by the Ministry of Health and Welfare (A062260). T.C.C. and J.H.M. were supported by Hi Seoul Science/Humanities Fellowship from Seoul Scholarship Foundation. The authors are grateful to N. Orazio for critical reading of the manuscript.
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N-H.C., S-Y.S. and Y.K.K. conceived and designed the experiments. T-C.C., J.H.M., J.H.W., S.J.L., D.H.K., J-S.Y. and S.K. performed the experiments. N-H.C., S-Y.S. and Y.K.K. analysed the data and wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Cho, NH., Cheong, TC., Min, J. et al. A multifunctional core–shell nanoparticle for dendritic cell-based cancer immunotherapy. Nature Nanotech 6, 675–682 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.149
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.149
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