Lipo-Based Vaccines as an Approach to Target Dendritic Cells for Induction of T- and iNKT Cell Responses
Dorian A. Stolk, Aram de Haas, Jana Vree, Sanne Duinkerken, Joyce Lübbers, Rieneke van de Ven, Martino Ambrosini, Hakan Kalay, Sven C. M. Bruijns, Hans J. van der Vliet, Tanja D. de Gruijl, Yvette van Kooyk
Abstract
In this study we developed a liposome-based vaccine containing palmitoylated synthetic long peptides (SLP) and alpha galactosylceramide (αGC) to specifically target dendritic cells (DC) for activation of both innate (invariant natural killer T-cells [iNKT])and adaptive (CD8+ T-cells) players of the immune system. Combination of model tumor specific antigens (gp100/MART-1) formulated as a SLP and αGC in one liposome results in strong activation of CD8+ and iNKT, as measured by IFNγ secretion. Moreover, addition of lipo-Lewis Y (LeY) to the liposomes for C-type lectin targeting increased not only uptake by monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDC), dermal dendritic cells and langerhans cells but also enhanced gp100-specific CD8+ T- and iNKT cell activation by human skin-emigrated antigen presenting cells in an ex vivo explant model. Loading of moDC with liposomes containing LeY also showed priming of MART-126-35L specific CD8+ T-cells. In conclusion, chemically linking a lipid tail to a glycan-based targeting moiety and SLP combined with αGC in one liposome allows for easy generation of vaccine formulations that target multiple skin DC subsets and induce tumor antigen specific CD8+ T- and iNKT cells. These liposomes present a new vaccination strategy against tumors.