Twins-like nanodrugs synchronously transport in blood and coalesce inside tumors for sensitive ultrasound imaging and triggerable penetrative drug delivery

Nanodrugs capable of aggregating in the tumor microenvironment(TME)have demonstrated great efficiency in improving the therapeutic outcome.Among vari-ous approaches,the strategy utilizing electrostatic interaction as a driving force to achieve intratumor aggregation of nanodrugs has attracted great attention.However,the great difference between the two nanodrugs with varied physicochemical prop-erties makes their synchronous transport in blood circulation and equal-opportunity tumor uptake impossible,which significantly detracts from the beneficial effects of nanodrug aggregation inside tumors.We herein propose a new strategy to construct a pair of extremely similar nanodrugs,referred to as“twins-like nanodrugs(TLNs)”,which have identical physicochemical properties including the same morphology,size,and electroneutrality to render them the same blood circulation time and tumor entrance.The 1:1 mixture of TLNs(TLNs-Mix)intravenously injected into a mouse model efficiently accumulates in tumor sites and then transfers to oppositely charged nanodrugs for electrostatic interaction-driven coalescence via responding to matrix metalloproteinase-2(MMP-2)enriched in tumor.In addition to enhanced tumor retention,the thus-formed micron-sized aggregates show high echo intensity essen-tial for ultrasound imaging as well as ultrasound-triggered penetrative drug delivery.Owing to their distinctive features,the TLNs-Mix carrying sonosensitizer,immune adjuvant,and ultrasound contrast agent exert potent sonodynamic immunotherapy against hypovascular hepatoma,demonstrating their great potential in treating solid malignancies.

Theranostic nanosystem mediating cascade catalytic reactions for effective immunotherapy of highly immunosuppressive and poorly penetrable pancreatic tumor

The dense desmoplastic stroma and immunosuppressive microenvironment of pancreatic cancer hinder the penetration of drugs and induce a considerable resistance to conventional chemoradiotherapy. Although nanomedicine has recently shown attractive potential in cancer immunotherapy, it remains a great challenge to achieve efficient drug delivery and potent immune activation.Here, a stimuli-responsive nanosystem, comprising superparamagnetic iron oxide nanocrystals and nitric oxide(NO) donors,was developed for in-situ triggered catalytic cascade reaction to produce abundant free radicals and remodel the anti-tumor immunity. The nanosystem was activated in the tumor microenvironment to produce NO which dilated the tumor vasculature for efficient drug delivery, and the iron oxide nanocrystals catalyzed the reaction of NO to generate reactive oxygen-nitrogen species(RONS) with high cytotoxicity. Moreover, owing to the catalytic cascade reactions mediated by the nanosystem, the tumor associated macrophages(TAMs) were converted to a proinflammatory M1 phenotype and tumor infiltration of effector T cells was promoted to result in potent anti-tumor immunotherapy which could be readily monitored with magnetic resonance imaging(MRI).