The Role and Development of Peptide Vaccines in Cervical Cancer Treatment

In recent years, as cancer immunotherapeutic approaches continue to be intensively investigated, therapeutic cancer vaccine strategies have shown great advantages in targeting and mediating host immune defense responses. Development of therapeutic vaccines targeting specific cancer types is considered an effective and feasible way to facilitate clinical translation of immunotherapy for malignancies in the future, with significant benefits in reducing cancer incidence and mortality. Live vector vaccines, DNA vaccines, peptide vaccines, protein vaccines, and entire cell-based vaccines are examples of therapeutic vaccines. Among them, peptide vaccines, one of the main types of therapeutic vaccines, can be prepared in vitro by chemical synthesis techniques based on the amino acid sequence of a known or predicted segment of an antigenic epitope in the antigenic gene of a pathogen. Studies have shown that peptide vaccines are capable of generating specific cellular immune responses and modulating the tumor microenvironment while having no significant toxic side effects; thus, peptide-based vaccines are expected to be an effective treatment for malignant tumors. Therapeutic human papillomavirus (HPV) peptide vaccines, which are usually based on the HPV oncoproteins E6 and E7 as target antigens, are currently in the clinical research phase and have shown encouraging results. This article reviews the development of peptide vaccines, adjuvant selection and its mechanism of action, ideal target selection and research progress in targeting cervical cancer.