Exploiting autophagy-regulative nanomaterials for activation of dendritic cells enables reinforced cancer immunotherapy

Dendritic cells (DCs), as the most powerful antigen presenting cells, play a critical role in regulating immune response and anti-tumor process. However, the immunosuppressive cells and factors resided in the tumor microenvironment (TME) pose various challenges that can subvert competent DC function comprising antigen presentation and immune initiation. In this setting, developing potent strategies to improve the function of DCs is critically required for improving the efficacy of tumor immunotherapy. Autophagy is found to be closely associated to the various functions of DCs under physiological and pathological conditions. Especially, nanomaterials (NMs) can engage in the disorder and regularity of autophagy to modulate their metabolism and function of DCs. Reasonable design of nanomaterials with autophagy regulation is of great significance to activate DCs and enhance its immunological functions, provoking robust and durable antitumor immunity. In this review, we study the design and optimization of nanomaterials with the function of regulating DCs autophagy, discuss the main mechanism of DCs autophagy induced by nanomaterials and its application in tumor immunotherapy, promoting the progress and development of cancer immunotherapy strategies in the future.