Innovative Strategies in Oncology: Bacterial Membrane Vesicle-Based Drug Delivery Systems for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy.

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are double-layered structures of nanoscale lipids released by gram-negative bacteria. They have the same membrane composition and characteristics as primitive cells, which enables them to penetrate cells and tissues efficiently. These OMVs exhibit excellent membrane stability, immunogenicity, safety, and permeability (which makes it easier for them to penetrate into tumour tissue), making them suitable for developing cancer vaccines and drug delivery systems.

PDPN positive CAFs contribute to HER2 positive breast cancer resistance to trastuzumab by inhibiting antibody-dependent NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity.

Trastuzumab is a humanized monoclonal antibody, and has been clinical employed to treat human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive breast cancer. However, drug resistance to trastuzumab remains a challenge due to the generally uncharacterized interactive immune responses within the tumor tissue. In this study, by means of single-cell sequencing, we identified a novel podoplanin-positive (PDPN) cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) subset, which was enriched in trastuzumab resistant tumor tissues.