Preparation of multifunctional glyconanoparticles as a platform for potential carbohydrate-based anticancer vaccines

A novel platform for anticancer vaccines has been prepared using glyconanotechnology recently developed in our laboratory. Ten different multifunctional gold glyconanoparticles incorporating sialylTn and Lewis(y) antigens, T-cell helper peptides (TT) and glucose in well defined average proportions and with differing density have been synthesised in one step and characterised using NMR and TEM. Size and nature of the linker were crucial to control kinetics of S-Au bond formation and to achieve the desired ligand ratio on the gold clusters. The technology presented here opens the way for tailoring polyvalent anticancer vaccines candidates and drug delivery carriers with defined average chemical composition. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.