Wu Nianhong, Zhang Qin, Tang Rui, Deng Liming, Cao Yuting, Fu Benxin, Dong Hongmei, Huang Zeyan, Wan Li, He Hongye, Lin Yi, Liu Junjie, Xia Chunyu, Li Pan
Department of Ultrasound and Chongqing Key Laboratory of Ultrasound Molecular Imaging and Therapy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400010, China.
Department of Radiology, Chongqing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Chongqing 400021, China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025 May 21;17(20):29364-29378. doi: 10.1021/acsami.5c03394. Epub 2025 May 7.
Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy, represented by anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies, is confronted with difficulties of unsatisfied response rates owing to the prevalence of "cold" immune tumor microenvironment (TME) in most cancers. Blocking cytoprotective autophagy has emerged as a potential strategy to remodel the inflammatory TME. Nevertheless, the dual roles of autophagy in tumor progression, coupled with the poor pharmacokinetic properties of small-molecule autophagy inhibitors, significantly restrict clinical applications. To address these challenges, a low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) responsive phase-change nanodroplet delivery platform (SP@Lip-PEG) is elaborately developed to deliver specific autophagy inhibitor SAR405 for activating typical tumor-resident immune cells. The PEG-modified nanodroplets effectively accumulate into the tumor site. Upon LIFU activation, SP@Lip-PEG transforms into microbubbles through acoustic droplet vaporization (ADV) effects, enabling the controlled release of SAR405 under ultrasound imaging guidance. The released SAR405 significantly triggered the upregulation of proinflammatory factors CCL5 and CXCL10 through autophagy manipulation, creating an inflammatory TME to facilitate the recruitment of natural killer (NK) cells and CD8 T cells, along with promoting dendritic cell (DC) maturation and synergistically enhancing ICB efficacy. With the high specificity of SAR405 and the controllable therapeutic process under LIFU irradiation, this noninvasive, efficient, and cost-effective drug delivery vector opened new horizons for conquering the clinical dilemma of rescuing ICB response rates.
Acc Chem Res. 2020-11-17
Brief Bioinform. 2021-9-2
Signal Transduct Target Ther. 2024-10-18
Mol Cancer. 2024-5-18
Cancer Commun (Lond). 2024-5
Cancer Commun (Lond). 2024-3
Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2024-3