Recent Advances in DNA Vaccines against Lung Cancer: A Mini Review

Abstract

Lung cancer is regarded as the major causes of patient death around the world. Although the novel tumor immunotherapy has made great progress in the past decades, such as utilizing immune checkpoint inhibitors or oncolytic viruses, the overall 5-year survival of patients with lung cancers is still low. Thus, development of effective vaccines to treat lung cancer is urgently required. In this regard, DNA vaccines are now considered as a promising immunotherapy strategy to activate the host immune system against lung cancer. DNA vaccines are able to induce both effective humoral and cellular immune responses, and they possess several potential advantages such as greater stability, higher safety, and being easier to manufacture compared to conventional vaccination. In the present review, we provide a global overview of the mechanism of cancer DNA vaccines and summarize the innovative neoantigens, delivery platforms, and adjuvants in lung cancer that have been investigated or approved. Importantly, we highlight the recent advance of clinical studies in the field of lung cancer DNA vaccine, focusing on their safety and efficacy, which might accelerate the personalized design of DNA vaccine against lung cancer.

Cutting-Edge Therapies for Lung Cancer

“…DNA and mRNA vaccines for cancer have become a promising strategy for both prevention and treatment. This method includes the introduction of DNA or RNA sequences that encode tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) or neoantigens, resulting in specific targeting of cancer cells [ 93 ]. Despite being in the early stages of development and clinical testing, cancer therapeutic vaccines, particularly those designed for lung cancer, show potential in treating patients resistant to the standard-of-care treatment [ 94 ].…”

Tumor Antigens beyond the Human Exome

“…Consequently to the high mutational burden, neo-epitope vaccines have been implemented successfully in melanoma trials [35][36][37], which gives hope for the treatment of other highly mutated cancers [33]. Smoking-associated lung cancer, which is characterized by C > A transversions [38], is only one example, and research on respective neo-antigen vaccines is ongoing as reviewed elsewhere [39,40]. The most recent milestone of personalized cancer vaccines which target neo-antigens has been achieved by Moderna and Merck.…”

Recent Advance of Liposome Nanoparticles for Nucleic Acid Therapy

“…In addition, DNA has a loose structure and a negative charge so that it is difficult to be endocytosed by cells, resulting in DNA drugs not working. Currently, some plasmid DNA vaccines have been put into clinical use, but their transfection efficiency is not ideal [ 21 ]. Therefore, improving the delivery efficiency of plasmid DNA and the releasability of DNA in the nucleus are an urgent difficulty to be solved.…”