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

Article · Huang L, Li Y, Du Y, Zhang Y, Wang X, Ding Y, Yang X, Meng F, Tu J, Luo L, Sun C

- Archive id: doi:10.1038/s41467-019-12771-9
- Published: 2019-10-25
- Venue: Nature communications
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12771-9
- PMID: 31653838
- PMCID: PMC6814770
- Citations: 439
- Source URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12771-9
- PDF: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC6814770/pdf
- Provenance: europepmc

## Abstract

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 gel-to-sol phase transition. Manually controlled NIR irradiation regulates the release of aPD-L1 and, more importantly, increases the recruitment of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and boosts T-cell activity against tumors. In vivo antitumor studies on 4T1 and B16F10 models demonstrate that SMPAI is an effective and promising strategy for treating "cold" tumors.

_Abstract reproduced under CC-BY (article license as recorded by Europe PMC; abstract reproduced unmodified apart from markup removal)._

Topics: [Cancer Immunotherapy](https://space-kitty.com/topics/cancer-immunotherapy)

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