Crosslinking of ovalbumin nanoparticles affects cellular and humoral immune responses

摘要

In summary, we evaluated the performance of PEG-crosslinked OVA NPs with varying crosslinking density with respect to their uptake by BMDCs, cross-priming and proliferation of OT-I CD8+ cells, production of OVA-specific CD8a+ T cells and induction of humoral immune responses. We found that less-crosslinked OVA NPs performed better than highly crosslinked NPs in terms of their uptake by BMDCs, OT-I CD8+ cell activation and anti-OVA antibody production, but we did not observe statistical difference between the NP groups in terms of OVA-specific CD8α+ T cell production. Future work should include incorporation of unmethylated CpG, an immunostimulant recognized by Toll-like receptor (TLR)-9, which is expressed in dendritic cells. To enhance cellular immune responses, CpG could be encapsulated into the crosslinked OVA NPs or conjugated to the NP surface.