%0 Journal Article %J Adv Healthc Mater %D 2015 %T Injectable, Pore-Forming Hydrogels for In Vivo Enrichment of Immature Dendritic Cells %A Verbeke, Catia S %A Mooney, David J %K Animals %K Biomarkers %K Cell Proliferation %K Dendritic Cells %K Female %K Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor %K Hydrogels %K Injections %K Mice %K Mice, Inbred C57BL %K Vaccines %X Biomaterials-based vaccines have emerged as a powerful method to evoke potent immune responses directly in vivo, without the need for ex vivo cell manipulation, and modulating dendritic cell (DC) responses in a noninflammatory context could enable the development of tolerogenic vaccines to treat autoimmunity. This study describes the development of a noninflammatory, injectable hydrogel system to locally enrich DCs in vivo without inducing their maturation or activation, as a first step toward this goal. Alginate hydrogels that form pores in situ are characterized and used as a physical scaffold for cell infiltration. These gels are also adapted to control the release of granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), a potent inducer of DC recruitment and proliferation. In vivo, sustained release of GM-CSF from the pore-forming gels leads to the accumulation of millions of cells in the material. These cells are highly enriched in CD11b(+) CD11c(+) DCs, and further analysis of cell surface marker expression indicates these DCs are immature. This study demonstrates that a polymeric delivery system can mediate the accumulation of a high number and percentage of immature DCs, and may provide the basis for further development of materials-based, therapeutic vaccines. %B Adv Healthc Mater %V 4 %P 2677-87 %8 2015 Dec 09 %G eng %N 17 %1 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26474318?dopt=Abstract %R 10.1002/adhm.201500618