Conspectus
Layered double hydroxide (LDH)
is an anionic two-dimensional plate-like
nanomaterial consisting of positively charged divalent and trivalent
cation layers and anion-exchangeable interlayer galleries alternatingly.
In the past decades, LDH has been widely explored as a versatile drug
delivery system (DDS) for delivering small molecules, genes, peptides,
and proteins due to its excellent drug-loading capacity and feasible
surface modification. At the cellular level, LDH can be easily internalized
by cells, escape rapidly (<30 min) from endosomes/lysosomes, and
subsequently diffuse into the cytoplasm and mitochondria, which provides
an important basis for achieving subcellular organelle-targeted drug
delivery. At the body level, LDH is able to actively target different
organs by optimizing the physicochemical properties (e.g., size and
colloidal stability) and surface modification. Beyond DDS, LDH has
been used as an antacid drug Talcid for nearly half a century, and
its chemical composition is also highly similar to commercial aluminum
adjuvants; thus, LDH has been redefined as a new type of antacid nanoaluminum
adjuvant for cancer immunotherapy. Notably, the flexible composition
of LDH enables its metal cations and defect sites in the LDH layer
to be tailored according to the needs of cancer immunotherapy. On
the one hand, doping nutritional metal cations into LDH layers can
greatly enhance the ability of LDH to activate immune cells and induce
tumor immunogenic cell death, thereby improving its efficiency in
inducing systemic immune responses. On the other hand, the modulation
of defect sites in the crystal structure of LDH enables itself to
sensitively respond to external stimuli for photothermal/photodynamic
therapy, sonodynamic therapy, and pH-sensitive magnetic resonance
imaging. Therefore, two-dimensional LDH nanomaterials with high physicochemical
plasticity are emerging as drug-free or drug-minimal candidates for
visualized cancer immunotherapy.
In this Account, we briefly
introduce the application of LDH as
DDS in delivering small molecules, genes, peptides, proteins, and
vaccines against malignant tumors, as well as the related surface
modification strategies for enhancing LDH-based nanomedicine/vaccine
accumulation in the targeted tissues. Then, we highlight our group’s
work in preparing drug-free or drug-minimal LDH for efficient cancer
immunotherapy beyond DDS. We are focusing on exploring the influence
of the intrinsic physicochemical properties of LDH on its activation
of the immune system, induction of tumor cell death, and evocation
of protective antitumor immune responses. The perspectives associated
with the application of immunomodulatory LDH for visualized cancer
immunotherapy are also discussed. We envision that these drug-free
or drug-minimal LDH nanomaterials for cancer immunotherapy will stimulate
the development of simple and highly effective immunomodulatory nanomaterials
to fight cancer.