As first defensive line, monocytes are a pivotal cell population of innate immunity. Monocyte activation can be relevant to a range of immune conditions and responses. Here we present new insights into the activation of monocytes by a series of phosphonic acid-terminated, phosphorus-containing dendrimers. Various dendritic or subdendritic structures were synthesized and tested, revealing the basic structural requirements for monocyte activation. We showed that multivalent character and phosphonic acid capping of dendrimers are crucial for monocyte targeting and activation. Confocal videomicroscopy showed that a fluorescein-tagged dendrimer binds to isolated monocytes and gets internalized within a few seconds. We also found that dendrimers follow the phagolysosomial route during internalization by monocytes. Finally, we performed fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) experiments between a specifically designed fluorescent dendrimer and phycoerythrin-coupled antibodies. We showed that the typical innate Toll-like receptor (TLR)-2 is clearly involved, but not alone, in the sensing of dendrimers by monocytes. In conclusion, phosphorus-containing dendrimers appear as precisely tunable nanobiotools able to target and activate human innate immunity and thus prove to be good candidates to develop new drugs for immunotherapies.

Non‐natural born killers: The addition of phosphorus‐containing dendrimers capped with phosphonate end groups to cultures of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (white blood cells) strongly stimulates the selective multiplication of functional natural killer (NK) cells (see picture), which play a key role in anticancer immunity. Both the generation of the dendrimer and the type of end groups are important criteria for the activity.