Chiral polypeptide hydrogels regulating local immune microenvironment and anti-tumor immune response

Junfeng Ding, Tianran Wang, Zhiqiang Lin, Zhenyu Li, Jiaxuan Yang, Fujiang Li, Yan Rong (), Xuesi Chen and Chaoliang He ()
Additional contact information
Junfeng Ding: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Tianran Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhiqiang Lin: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Zhenyu Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jiaxuan Yang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Fujiang Li: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yan Rong: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xuesi Chen: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chaoliang He: Chinese Academy of Sciences

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: Abstract The impact of chirality on immune response has attracted great interest in cancer vaccine research recently. However, the study of chiral synthetic polypeptide hydrogels as cancer vaccines as well as of the impact of biomaterials themselves for antitumor immunotherapy has rarely been reported. Here, we show the key role of residue chirality of polypeptide hydrogels in antitumor immunity and local immune microenvironment regulation. Compared to poly(γ-ethyl-L-glutamate)-based hydrogels (L-Gel), poly(γ-ethyl-D-glutamate)-based hydrogels (D-Gel) induces enhanced level of immune cell infiltration. However, D-Gel causes higher levels of suppressive markers on antigen-presenting cells and even induces stronger T cell exhaustion than L-Gel. Finally, D-Gel establishes a local chronic inflammatory and immunosuppressive microenvironment and shows insufficient anti-tumor effects. Conversely, the milder host immune responses induced by L-Gel leads to more effective tumor inhibition. This study provides insights on the role of residue chirality in the regulation of local immune microenvironment and affecting antitumor immune response.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56137-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56137-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56137-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().