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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Oct 12.
Published in final edited form as: Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2020 Oct 12;160:19–35. doi: 10.1016/j.addr.2020.10.004

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Potential for lymphatic drug delivery to enable modulation of the anti-tumor immune response. Tumor antigen drains to LNs via lymphatic vessels, where it is processed and presented via APCs to T cells. LN-targeted DDSs carrying immunomodulatory therapeutics can enhance this process by creating a more pro-inflammatory LN environment, more efficiently delivering tumor antigen to APCs, or stimulating specific immune cell subtypes, leading to increased antigen-specific T cell priming, proliferation, and subsequent infiltration into the tumor, potentially allowing increased tumor killing. Lymphatic vessel-targeted DDSs can modulate lymphatics by either promoting lymphangiogenesis via growth factory delivery, or preventing lymphangiogenesis by growth factor depletion or lymphatic ablation in order to support anti-tumor or suppress pro-tumor function to further reduce tumor burden.