Chemo-immunotherapy with doxorubicin prodrug and erythrocyte membrane-enveloped polymer nano-vaccine enhances antitumor activity

There are plenty of evidences to show that combining of chemotherapy and immunotherapy should be a very potent anti-cancer therapeutic method. In this research, we evaluated the anti-tumor activity of doxorubicin prodrug combined with erythrocyte membrane-enveloped polymer nano-vaccine against tumor in vitro and in vivo. We also analyzed the immune cell populations to investigate the effect in the tumor microenvironment and explored the inhibitory of lung metastasis. Our study showed that chemo-immunotherapy could inhibit the growth of melanoma tumor in mice. This combination approach promoted a stronger immune response by up-regulating the expression of dendritic cells and cytotoxic T cells in lymph nodes and increased the secretion of cytokines. It also restricted the immunosuppressive environment through inhibiting expression of regulatory T cells. It suggested that combination of prodrug and nano-vaccine achieved better anti-tumor effect than monotherapy, which should be widely valued and further studied to establish in a more economical and efficient way, expected to apply in the future clinical practice of cancer treatment.