Chitin nanostructures and their immune modulatory potential in therapeutic use

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Alf Lamprecht
• Subject Area: Pharmacy
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 561830873

As a pharmaceutical auxiliary compound, chitin offers numerous advantages including abundance, inexpensiveness, and acceptable safety profile. Recent research in our laboratory has demonstrated that nano-sizing can endow pharmaceutical inactive ingredients immunomodulatory properties exploitable for therapeutic purposes, even in the absence of a drug load. Given resemblance to microbial components, submicron particle size increases the excipient visibility to the immune system, thereby enhancing their immunomodulatory properties to a significant extent. Though the immunomodulatory properties of chitin and their size dependence has been established, investigation of these within the context of a submicron size range and for immunotherapeutic applications is still lacking. Accordingly, the proposed project seeks to enhance the immunostimulatory properties of chitin through the formulation of submicron particles and to exploit these for cancer immunotherapy. In line with such goals, the project aims to develop a reproducible, preferably surfactant-free, method for the preparation of chitin nanoparticles in a size range of 100-700 nm and (if possible) even below 100nm. The particles will be then investigated in terms of their physicochemical properties (size, surface charge and hydrophobicity, and morphology), their uptake and intracellular trafficking in macrophages and dendritic cells, and their effect on the secretion of different cytokines and chemokines therefrom. Additionally, the impact of the particles dendritic cell maturation, T-cell activation, and macrophage polarization will be examined. The project also intends to cast a look upon the mechanisms through which nano-sized chitin activates the immune system, and whether the submicron size mechanistically alters the involved pathways. Finally, the ability of the particles to retard the tumor growth, induce tumor cell apoptosis and increase intratumoral leukocyte infiltration will be evaluated in vivo. The proposed project regards nanoparticles as beyond carriers for the delivery of immunotherapeutics and strives to benefit from their inherent immunostimulatory potentials for therapeutic purposes.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants