Antigenic Peptide Hydrogels for Cancer Vaccination

Self-assembled peptides have shown outstanding characteristics for vaccine delivery. Peptide molecules can be rationally designed into self-assembled hydrogels, which have advantages in biocompatibility, stability against enzymatic degradation, encapsulation of antigens, sustained antigen release, shear-thinning viscoelastic properties, and/or adjuvant properties. These self-assembled antigenic peptide hydrogels have shown sequence- and structure-dependent impacts on the immune system that can be tailored to induce or prevent complement activation and used as an adjuvant and/or antigen carrier, and provide microenvironments that may aid interaction with antigen presenting cells (APCs), thus contributing to both prophylactic and immunotherapeutic vaccines. In this review, we will describe an alternative strategy for preparing antigenic peptide hydrogel cancer vaccines, particularly focusing on the design of antigenic peptides as tumor antigens, and summarize the progress of cancer immunotherapy by self-assembled antigenic peptide hydrogel tumor vaccines.