Drug delivery and translational researchMar 7, 2025

Using lipid nanoparticles to target mRNA delivery to spleen immune cells for cancer vaccination

mRNA Technology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Jan 12, 2026

Abstract

Optimized CL15H6 lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) achieved approximately 75% tumor growth suppression in mice after mRNA delivery.

The design of LNPs was tailored to specifically deliver mRNA to splenic immune cells following intravenous administration.
Chemical structure variations of ionizable lipids significantly influenced the biodistribution and targeting efficiency of the LNPs.
CL15H6 was identified as a model lipid with a high affinity for the spleen, enhancing mRNA delivery to splenic antigen-presenting cells.
Loading LNPs with low doses of ovalbumin-encoding mRNA resulted in protection against OVA-expressing tumors.
The LNPs demonstrated biosafety during acute dose escalation and repeated administrations, supporting potential clinical applications.

Simplified

Herein, we report a design for lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) that specifically delivers mRNA to splenic immune cells post intravenous administration for potential anticancer vaccination applications. A diverse library of ionizable lipids was screened in vivo, in combination with various helper lipids, where the composition of LNPs was tweaked to control their in vivo performance. The biodistribution of the LNPs was then investigated at both organ and sub-organ levels. Subsequently, the LNPs were recruited to deliver an anticancer mRNA-based vaccine to mice. The in vivo tropism of the LNPs was dramatically affected by the chemical structure of the ionizable lipids in question, where a model lipid, CL15H6, was recognized as displaying high affinity for the spleen. Further optimization of the composition of the LNPs enabled highly efficient and spleen-selective mRNA delivery, where the optimized CL15H6 LNPs demonstrated a high capacity for homing to splenic antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Furthermore, loading the LNPs with a low dose of ovalbumin-encoding mRNA (mOVA), as a model antigen, protected the mice against OVA-expressing tumor challenges and suppressed the tumor growth in tumor-bearing mice by ~ 75%, which was superior to the results of a clinically-relevant formulation. The CL15H6 LNPs proved to be biosafe upon either acute dose escalation or repeated administrations. The novel and scalable platform reported herein is promising for clinical translation as a neoantigen vaccine.

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Competing interests

Declarations. Ethical approval: This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. All the experimental protocols involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Hokkaido University Animal Care Committee, Sapporo, Japan. Competing interests: The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

PubMed

Using lipid nanoparticles to target mRNA delivery to spleen immune cells for cancer vaccination

Abstract

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Funding

Competing interests

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