Engineering Bimetallic Polyphenol for Mild Photothermal Osteosarcoma Therapy and Immune Microenvironment Remodeling by Activating Pyroptosis and cGAS-STING Pathway

Adv Healthc Mater. 2024 May 1:e2400623. doi: 10.1002/adhm.202400623. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

The immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (ITME) of osteosarcoma (OS) poses a significant obstacle to the efficacy of existing immunotherapies. Despite the attempt of novel immune strategies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors and tumor vaccines, their effectiveness remains suboptimal due to the inherent difficulty in mitigating ITME simultaneously from both the tumor and immune system. The promotion of anti-tumor immunity through the induction of immunogenic cell death and activation of the cGAS-STING pathway has emerged as potential strategies to counter the ITME and stimulate systemic antitumor immune responses. Here, a bimetallic polyphenol-based nanoplatform (Mn/Fe-Gallate nanoparticles coated with tumor cell membranes is presented, MFG@TCM) which combines with mild photothermal therapy (PTT) for reversing ITME via simultaneously inducing pyroptosis in OS cells and activating the cGAS-STING pathway in dendritic cells (DCs). The immunostimulatory pathways, through the syngeneic effect, exerted a substantial positive impact on promoting the secretion of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and proinflammatory cytokines, which favors remodeling the immune microenvironment. Consequently, effector T cells led to a notable antitumor immune response, effectively inhibiting the growth of both primary and distant tumors. This study proposes a new method for treating OS using mild PTT and immune mudulation, showing promise in overcoming current treatment limitations.

Keywords: cGAS‐STING; immunotherapy; mild‐temperature PTT; osteosarcoma; pyroptosis.