ABSTRACT
Tumor-induced immune suppression mediated by myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and insufficient immunogenicity are two major factors for the poor overall response rate to the immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). Here, a tumor microenvironment responsive nanoprodrug (FIT nanoparticles) is presented for co-delivering tadalafil (TAD) and indocyanine green (ICG) photosensitizer to simultaneously targeting intratumor MDSCs and amplifying tumor immunogenicity. The resulting nanoprodrug shows high drug loading (nearly 100%), tumor-specific release, and robust therapeutic efficacy by virtue of promoting immunogenic cell death (ICD) induction and alleviation of MDSCs for augmenting the photothermal immunotherapy. In an in vivo colon tumor model, the released TAD in the tumor can effectively ameliorate MDSCs immunosuppressive activity, while the photosensitizer ICG is capable of inducing ICD to promote sufficient dendritic cells maturation and T cell infiltration. The results reported here may provide a superior candidate of adjuvants for strengthening immune response and ICB efficacy.
Subject(s)
Colonic Neoplasms , Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells , Colonic Neoplasms/metabolism , Humans , Immunotherapy/methods , Tadalafil/pharmacology , Tumor MicroenvironmentABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The complex tumor microenvironment and non-targeting drugs limit the efficacy of clinical tumor therapy. For ensuring the accurate delivery and maximal effects of anticancer drugs, it is important to develop innovative drug delivery system based on nano-strategies. RESULT: In this study, an intracellular acidity-responsive polymeric metal organic framework nanoparticle (denoted as DIMP) has been constructed, which can co-deliver the chemotherapy agent of doxorubicin (DOX) and phototherapy agent of indocyanine green (ICG) for breast carcinoma theranostics. Specifically, DIMP possesses a suitable and stable nanometer size and can respond to the acidic microenvironment in cells, thus precisely delivering drugs into target tumor sites and igniting the biological reactions towards cell apoptosis. Following in vivo and in vitro results showed that DIMP could be effectively accumulated in tumor sites and induced powerful immunogenic cell death (ICD) effect. CONCLUSION: The designed DIMP displayed its effectiveness in combined photo-chemotherapy with auxiliary of ICD effect under a multimodal imaging monitor. Thus, the present MOF-based strategy may offer a potential paradigm for designing drug-delivery system for image-guided synergistic tumor therapy.