Polymeric Immune Adjuvant Materials

Adjuvants are substances added to vaccines to enhance the specific immune response to antigens in a non-specific way, and are important components of vaccines and immunotherapy. In order to solve the problems of poor targeting, high systemic exposure and biological toxicity of the currently marketed adjuvants including small molecules and biologics, polymeric materials with immunostimulatory activity and biosafety are becoming a hot research topic. In this feature article, we reviewed polymeric adjuvant materials of natural or synthetic origin that had been discovered in recent years with immunostimulatory activity, as well as polymeric materials used to encapsulate or conjugate with small molecule adjuvants. We proposed the concept of "polymeric immune adjuvant materials", and pointed out that polymeric immune adjuvant materials not only can act as pattern recognition receptor agonists to activate the immune system with a safer and more controllable manner than small molecule adjuvants, but also can be combined with small molecule adjuvants in a physically encapsulated or chemically bonded manner to control the in vivo delivery and release behavior of the antigen and small molecule adjuvants, thus enhancing the immune responses. We hope the discussion in this feature article could help the understanding of polymeric immune adjuvant materials and promote the further development of immunotherapy and vaccines. [GRAPHICS] .