Biomimetic and Materials-Potentiated Cell Engineering for Cancer Immunotherapy

In cancer immunotherapy, immune cells are the main force for tumor eradication. However, they appear to be dysfunctional due to the taming of the tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment. Recently, many materials-engineered strategies are proposed to enhance the anti-tumor effect of immune cells. These strategies either utilize biomimetic materials, as building blocks to construct inanimate entities whose functions are similar to natural living cells, or engineer immune cells with functional materials, to potentiate their anti-tumor effects. Biomimetic strategies utilize bioactive cell-derived components or biomimetic materials, as building blocks to construct inanimate entities whose functions are similar to natural living cells (Table 1). The abilities of targeting [10,11], chemotaxis [12], invisibility [13], antigen presentation [14], phagocytosis and killing can be achieved via cell-mimicking strategies [15,16].

• 1
  Materials-potentiated cell engineering strategies are to endow immune cells with different supportive components (also known as backpack strategies), or functional materials to enhance their anti-tumor effects, prevent and rescue their dysfunction, maintain and restore their anti-tumor phenotype
• 2
  T cell mimics could be fabricated as decoys to ameliorate immunosuppression and prevent excessive immune responses. Taking advantage of biomimetic materials, multiple immunosuppressive signals can be blocked.
• 3
  The dual aptamer-modified T-P-NK cells showed higher affinity to HepG2 cells and secreted more IFN-γ. The tumor cell apoptosis rate rose with the increase in the effector-to-target (E/T) ratio, and significantly exceeded other groups.