Temporal Control of Trained Immunity via Encapsulated Release of β-Glucan Improves Therapeutic Applications

Emerging diseases require generating new vaccines, which can often be time consuming. An alternate method to boost host defense is by inducing nonspecific innate immune memory, called trained immunity, to develop novel prophylactics. Many molecules, most notably β-glucan, induce trained immunity, but their effects are often short-lived and uncontrolled. This lack of temporal control limits both the therapeutic ability of training and provides fundamental questions about its nature. To achieve temporal control of trained immunity, controlled release nanoparticles encapsulating only 3.5% of the standard dose of β-glucan to attain sustained release over a month are engineered. Nanoparticle-trained mice exhibit prolonged training effects and improve resistance to a B16F10 tumor challenge compared to mice that receive an equivalent amount of free β-glucan. The duration of trained immunity is further fine tuned by synthesizing nanoparticles composed of different molecular weights to modulate the release kinetics. These results demonstrate that dosing and temporal control can substantially alter the trained response to unanticipated levels. As such, this approach using sustained release platforms might lead to a novel prophylactic strategy for improved disease resistance against a wide variety of diseases.