A multistimuli-responsive transient supramolecular polymerization of β-sheet-encoded dendritic peptide monomers in water is presented. The amphiphiles, which contain glutamic acid and methionine, undergo a glucose oxidase catalyzed, glucose-fueled transient hydrogelation in response to an interplay of pH and oxidation stimuli, promoted by the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Adjusting the enzyme and glucose concentration allows tuning of the assembly and the disassembly rates of the supramolecular polymers, which dictate the stiffness and transient stability of the hydrogels. The incorporation of triethylene glycol chains introduces thermoresponsive properties to the materials. We further show that repair enzymes are able to reverse the oxidative damage in the methionine-based thioether side chains. Since ROS play an important role in signal transduction cascades, our strategy offers great potential for applications of these dynamic biomaterials in redox microenvironments.

A modular route to prepare functional self-assembling dendritic peptide amphiphiles decorated with mannosides, to effectively target antigen-presenting cells, such as macrophages, is reported. The monomeric building blocks were equipped with tetra(ethylene glycol)s (TEGs) or labeled with a Cy3 fluorescent probe. Experiments on the uptake of the multifunctional supramolecular particles into murine macrophages (Mφs) were monitored by confocal microscopy and fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Mannose-decorated supramolecular polymers trigger a significantly higher cellular uptake and distribution, relative to TEG carrying bare polymers. No cytotoxicity or negative impact on cytokine production of the treated Mφs was observed, which emphasized their biocompatibility. The modular nature of the multicomponent supramolecular polymer coassembly protocol is a promising platform to develop fully synthetic multifunctional vaccines, for example, in cancer immunotherapy.

Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) promote the immune suppressive microenvironment inside tumors and are, therefore, considered as a promising target for the next generation of cancer immunotherapies. To repolarize their phenotype into a tumoricidal state, the Toll-like receptor 7/8 agonist imidazoquinoline IMDQ is site-specifically and quantitatively coupled to single chain antibody fragments, so-called nanobodies, targeting the macrophage mannose receptor (MMR) on TAMs. Intravenous injection of these conjugates result in a tumor-and cell-specific delivery of IMDQ into MMR high TAMs, causing a significant decline in tumor growth. This is accompanied by a repolarization of TAMs towards a pro-inflammatory phenotype and an increase in anti-tumor T cell responses. Therefore, the therapeutic benefit of such nanobody-drug conjugates may pave the road towards effective macrophage re-educating cancer immunotherapies.

Enhancing the immunogenicity of an antitumour vaccine still poses a major challenge. It depends upon the selected antigen and the mode of its presentation. We here describe a fully synthetic antitumour vaccine, which addresses both aspects. For the antigen, a tumour-associated MUC1 glycopeptide as B-cell epitope was synthesised and linked to the immunostimulating T-cell epitope P2 derived from tetanus toxoid. The MUC1-P2 conjugate is presented multivalently on a hyperbranched polyglycerol to the immune system. In comparison to a related vaccine of lower multivalency, this vaccine exposing more antigen structures on the hyperbranched polymer induced significantly stronger immune responses in mice and elicited IgG antibodies of distinctly higher affinity to epithelial tumour cells.