{"doi":"10.17615/9gfx-2246","title":"Curcumin Micelles Remodel Tumor Microenvironment and Enhance Vaccine Activity in an Advanced Melanoma Model","abstract":"Previously, we have reported a lipid-based Trp2 peptide vaccine for immunotherapy against melanoma. The suppressive immune microenvironment in the tumor is a major hurdle for an effective vaccine therapy. We hypothesized that curcumin (CUR) would remodel the tumor microenvironment to improve the vaccine activity. Curcumin–polyethylene glycol conjugate (CUR–PEG), an amphiphilic CUR-based micelle, was delivered intravenously (i.v.) to the tumor. Indeed, in the B16F10 tumor–bearing mice, the combination of CUR–PEG and vaccine treatment resulted in a synergistic antitumor effect (P < 0.001) compared to individual treatments. In the immune organs, the combination therapy significantly boosted in vivo cytotoxic T-lymphocyte response (41.0 ± 5.0% specific killing) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) production (sevenfold increase). In the tumor microenvironment, the combination therapy led to significantly downregulated levels of immunosuppressive factors, such as decreased numbers of myeloid-derived suppressor cells and regulatory T cells (Treg) cells and declined levels of interleukin-6 and chemokine ligand 2—in correlation with increased levels of proinflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor-α and IFN-γ as well as an elevation in the CD8+ T-cell population. The results indicated a distinct M2 to M1 phenotype switch in the treated tumors. Combining CUR–PEG and vaccine also dramatically downregulated the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 pathway (76% reduction). Thus, we conclude that CUR–PEG is an effective agent to improve immunotherapy for advanced melanoma.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":114885,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9467,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":539435,"name":"Yi Zhao","orcid":"0000-0002-4531-8632","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":539436,"name":"Yao Lü","orcid":"0000-0002-3380-7762","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":453049,"name":"Lei Miao","orcid":"0000-0002-2281-2689","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":254423,"name":"Leaf Huang","orcid":"0000-0002-9421-8283","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":282211,"name":"Youqing Shen","orcid":"0000-0003-1837-7976","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":515139,"name":"Yuhua Wang","orcid":"0000-0003-3138-1312","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":539437,"name":"Guangya Xiang","orcid":"0000-0002-5974-8887","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":72174,"name":"Zhenghong Xu","orcid":"0000-0003-1340-6838","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:13:33.226937Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}