Oral administration of a whole glucan particle (WGP)-based therapeutic cancer vaccine targeting macrophages inhibits tumor growth

Although therapeutic cancer vaccines have been gaining substantial ground, the development of cancer vaccines is impeded because of the undegradability of delivery systems, ineffective delivery of tumor antigens and weak immunogenicity of adjuvants. Here, we made use of a whole glucan particle (WGP) to encapsulate ovalbumin (OVA), thereby formulating a novel cancer vaccine. Results from in vitro experiments showed that WGP-OVA not only induced the activation of bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) including driving M0 BMDM polarization to the M1 phenotype, upregulating the costimulatory molecules and inducing the generation of cytokines, but also facilitated antigen presentation. After oral administration of the WGP-OVA formulation to mice with OVA-expressing tumors, these particles can increase tumor-infiltrating OVA-specific CD8+ CTLs and repolarize tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) toward M1-like phenotype, which led to delayed tumor progression. These findings revealed that WGP could serve as both an antigen delivery system and an adjuvant system for promising cancer vaccines.