Nano/genetically engineered cells for immunotherapy

Immunotherapy has recently emerged as a promising therapeutic modality for the treatment of various diseases such as cancer, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases. Despite its potential, immunotherapy faces challenges related to delivery efficiency and off-target toxicity of immunotherapeutic drugs. Nano drug delivery systems offer improvements in drug biodistribution and release kinetics but still suffer from shortcomings such as high immunogenicity, poor penetration across biological barriers, and insufficient tissue permeability. Targeted delivery of drugs using living cells has become an emerging strategy that can take advantage of the inherent characteristics of cells to deal with the delivery defects of nano delivery systems. Furthermore, cells themselves can be genetically engineered into cellular drugs for enhanced immunotherapy. This review provides an in-depth exploration of cell-derived drug carriers, detailing their biological properties, functions, and commonly used drug loading strategies. In addition, the role of genetically modified cells in immunotherapy and their synergistic therapeutic effects with drug delivery are also introduced. By summarizing the main advancements and limitations in the field, this review offers insights into the potential of cell-based drug delivery systems to address the existing challenges in immunotherapy. The introduction to recent developments and evaluation of ongoing research will pave the way for the optimization and widespread adoption of nano/genetically engineered cells for immunotherapy. Multiple types of cells including immune cells, red blood cells, platelets, stem cells, beta cells, adipocytes, and bacteria can function as cell-derived drug carriers or genetically engineered cellular drugs according to their unique biological properties and functions for the immunotherapy of tumor, autoimmune diseases, inflammation, infectious disease, and so on. image