Chemotaxis-driven delivery of nano-pathogenoids for complete eradication of tumors post-phototherapy

The efficacy of nano-mediated drug delivery has been impeded by multiple biological barriers such as the mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS), as well as vascular and interstitial barriers. To overcome the abovementioned obstacles, we report a nano-pathogenoid (NPN) system that can in situ hitchhike circulating neutrophils and supplement photothermal therapy (PTT). Cloaked with bacteria-secreted outer membrane vesicles inheriting pathogen-associated molecular patterns of native bacteria, NPNs are effectively recognized and internalized by neutrophils. The neutrophils migrate towards inflamed tumors, extravasate across the blood vessels, and penetrate through the tumors. Then NPNs are rapidly released from neutrophils in response to inflammatory stimuli and subsequently taken up by tumor cells to exert anticancer effects. Strikingly, due to the excellent targeting efficacy, cisplatin-loaded NPNs combined with PTT completely eradicate tumors in all treated mice. Such a nano-platform represents an efficient and generalizable strategy towards in situ cell hitchhiking as well as enhanced tumor targeted delivery. The presence of several biological barriers impede the efficacy of nano-mediated drug delivery for solid cancer therapy. Here, the authors develop a nano-pathogenoid system that targets circulating neutrophils and show that it overcomes these biological barriers and improves tumour targeting and efficacy.