mRNA vaccination in breast cancer: current progress and future direction

Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination has proven to be highly successful in combating Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and has recently sparked tremendous interest. This technology has been a popular topic of research over the past decade and is viewed as a promising treatment strategy for cancer immunotherapy. However, despite being the most prevalent malignant disease for women worldwide, breast cancer patients have limited access to immunotherapy benefits. mRNA vaccination has the potential to convert cold breast cancer into hot and expand the responders. Effective mRNA vaccine design for in vivo function requires consideration of vaccine targets, mRNA structures, transport vectors, and injection routes. This review provides an overview of pre-clinical and clinical data on various mRNA vaccination platforms used for breast cancer treatment and discusses potential approaches to combine appropriate vaccination platforms or other immunotherapies to improve mRNA vaccine therapy efficacy for breast cancer.