Peptide vaccine formulations with structurally distinct STING agonist drugamers induce discrete, efficacious antitumor responses.

ABSTRACT: Peptide therapeutic cancer vaccines are an attractive treatment modality for their safety and manufacturability but have been hindered in clinical translation by low immunogenicity and insufficient CD8⁺ T cell activation. We developed virus-inspired polymers for endosomal release (VIPER) to address systemic and intracellular delivery obstacles, but durable antitumor immunity remained elusive. Adjuvants stimulating innate immunity, such as stimulator of interferon genes (STING) agonists, can enhance vaccine potency but risks systemic toxicity and improper immune activation. We developed STING "drugamers" with cathepsin-cleavable linkers and dendritic cell (DC)-targeting moieties for intracellular delivery of STING agonists to DCs. We explored two different STING drugamer structur

SUBMITTER: Song K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12626017 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature