Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles in Potentiating Cancer Vaccines: Progress and Prospects

Cancer immunotherapy is increasingly moving toward personalized, precision-based strategies, with cancer vaccines emerging as a promising approach to reshape treatment. However, despite their potential, current tumor vaccines often yield limited clinical responses and subpar immunogenicity, underscoring the urgent need for innovative delivery systems to enhance immune activation. Bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs), which possess natural immunomodulatory properties and impressive engineering flexibility, have attracted attention as versatile platforms for vaccine development and bioengineering applications. This review thoroughly summarizes recent advances in using OMVs to enhance the effectiveness of cancer vaccines. First, we explain the key biological features of OMVs that support their immunotherapeutic potential. Next, we carefully analyze the primary mechanisms by which OMVs enhance immune responses, as well as cutting-edge engineering strategies to improve their safety, immunogenicity, and specificity. Additionally, we discuss the significant challenges that hinder the clinical use of OMV-based cancer vaccines and provide a comprehensive review of current progress and future outlooks. Looking forward, combining artificial intelligence, tumor microenvironment profiling, and neoantigen discovery is expected to drive the development of next-generation, personalized OMV-based immunotherapies. Overall, OMVs stand out as a transformative platform capable of overcoming major obstacles in cancer vaccine development and pushing forward future cancer immunotherapy.