Cytokine-bearing Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles with Empowered Efficacy in Intratumoral Immunotherapy

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Abstract Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMVs), spherical bilayered nanoparticles naturally released by all Gram-negative bacteria, are gaining increasing interest not only in the design of prophylactic vaccines but also in cancer immunotherapy. In particular, thanks to their potent built-in adjuvanticity and to their intrinsic capacity to directly kill tumor cells, OMVs have been successfully tested in intratumoral in situ vaccination (ISV), a strategy in which immunostimulatory formulations are injected directly into tumors to convert the tumor microenvironment (TME) into an immune-reactive state. Previous studies have shown that OMVs induce robust inflammation and a Th1-skewed immune response, resulting in complete tumor remission in a substantial fraction of mice bearing syngeneic tumors. Here, we show that OMVs from our Escherichia coli Δ60 strain can be efficiently engineered with multiple cytokines and chemokines. Moreover, CCL3, Flt3L, TNFα, and IL-2 not only accumulated on the OMV surface but also retained their in vitro biological activity. Furthermore, OMVs displaying these cytokines exhibited potent antitumor activity, and in particular the intratumoral injection of the combined TNFα- and IL-2-engineered OMVs eradicated tumors in over 95% of mice across several syngeneic models. Immunostaining and flow cytometry analyses revealed that injection of engineered OMVs markedly remodeled the TME, promoting the recruitment of inflammatory myeloid cells and γδ T cells, the persistence of local CD8⁺ and CD4⁺ αβ T cells, and the reduction of regulatory T cells. Overall, these results highlight cytokine-bearing OMVs as a versatile and highly effective platform for intratumoral immunotherapy.

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