Mild photothermal therapy potentiates anti-PD-L1 treatment for immunologically cold tumors via an all-in-one and all-in-control strategy

One of the main challenges for immune checkpoint blockade antibodies lies in malignancies with limited T-cell responses or immunologically "cold" tumors. Inspired by the capability of fever-like heat in inducing an immune-favorable tumor microenvironment, mild photothermal therapy (PTT) is proposed to sensitize tumors to immune checkpoint inhibition and turn "cold" tumors "hot." Here we present a combined all-in-one and all-in-control strategy to realize a local symbiotic mild photothermal-assisted immunotherapy (SMPAI). We load both a near-infrared (NIR) photothermal agent IR820 and a programmed death-ligand 1 antibody (aPD-L1) into a lipid gel depot with a favorable property of thermally reversible…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 81673364, 81972894
• MO
  Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China

  Awards: 2018YFA0208903, 2017ZX09101001006
• CP
  China Pharmaceutical University
• GO
  Government of Jiangsu Province
• SK
  State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines
• PA
  Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions

  Award: 81673364
• FR
  Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

  Award: 2632018ZD13