PEG Spacer Length Substantially Affects Antibody-Based Nanocarrier Targeting of Dendritic Cell Subsets

Successful cell targeting depends on the controlled positioning of cell-type-specific antibodies on the nanocarrier’s (NC) surface. Uncontrolled antibody immobilization results in unintended cell uptake due to Fc-mediated cell interaction. Consequently, precise immobilization of the Fc region towards the nanocarrier surface is needed with the Fab regions staying freely accessible for antigen binding. Moreover, the antibody needs to be a certain distance from the nanocarrier surface, influencing the targeting performance after formation of the biomolecular corona. This can be achieved by using PEG linker molecules. Here we demonstrate cell type-specific targeting for dendritic cells (DC) as cellular key regulators of immune responses. However, to date, dendritic cell targeting experiments using different linker lengths still need to be conducted. Consequently, we focused on the surface modification of nanocarriers with different molecular weight PEG linkers (0.65, 2, and 5 kDa), and their ability to reduce undesired cell uptake, while achieving efficient DC targeting via covalently immobilized antibodies (stealth targeting). Our findings demonstrate that the PEG linker length significantly affects active dendritic cell targeting from cell lines (DC2.4) to primary cells (BMDCs, splenocytic conventional DCs type 1 (cDC1)). While antibody-functionalized nanocarriers with a shorter PEG length (0.65 kDa) showed the best targeting in DC2.4, a longer PEG length (5 kDa) was required to specifically accumulate in BMDCs and splenocytic cDC1. Our study highlights that these crucial aspects must be considered when targeting dendritic cell subsets, which are of great importance in the fields of cancer immunotherapy and vaccine development.