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Photothermal therapy (PTT) against cancer not only directly ablates tumors but also induces tumor immunogenic cell death (ICD). However, the antitumor immune response elicited by ICD is insufficient to prevent relapse and metastasis because of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). A biomimetic nanoplatform (bmNP) mimicking cytotoxic lymphocytes (CTLs) for combinational photothermal-immunotherapy to effectively regulate the immunosuppressive TME is reported here. The bmNP is constructed by wrapping the T-cell membrane onto a new type of photothermal agents, spherical Au-based PNCs (sAuPNCs). Similar to T-cells, the bmNP enhanced accumulation at the tumor site by targeting the tumor via adhesion proteins on T-cell membrane. The obtained sAuPNCs have a wide absorption band in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) region with a high photothermal conversion efficiency (PCE) up to about 75% and excellent photostability. The bmNP with a smaller size is more superior compete with T-cells to bond with tumor cells via PD-1/PD-L1 interaction to effectively block the PD-1 checkpoint of T-cells for preventing T-cell exhaustion. Furthermore, in vivo studies reveal the immunological memory effect is significantly elicited in mice received bmNPs therapy. Collectively, bmNPs show great potential in photothermal-enhanced immunotherapy.
Xiong et al. (Sat,) studied this question.