Soft matter DNA nanoparticles hybridized with CpG motifs and peptide nucleic acids enable immunological treatment of cancer.

Nucleic acids have been used as building blocks to assemble nanostructures by their sequence specific self-recognition properties, and resulting DNA architectures were applied as potential multifunctional drug carriers. Here, we report an amphiphilic lipid-DNA aggregate hybridized with pharmaceutically active DNA and peptide segments for cancer immunotherapy. The facile formulation of the CpG sequence and antigen peptide-bearing peptide nucleic acid representing immune-adjuvant and antigen, respectively, enabled the highly efficacious induction of antigen-specific immune activation. This immunotherapeutic formulation was evaluated in terms of multiple types of tumor growth and metastasis in vivo.