Programing Immunogenic Cell Death in Breast Tumors with Designer DNA Frameworks

The low response rate and serious side effects of cancer treatment pose significant limitations in immunotherapy. Here, we developed a multifunctional tetrahedral DNA framework (TDF) as a drug carrier to recruit chemotherapeutants and trigger immunogenic cell death (ICD) effects, which could turn tumors from cold to hot to boost the efficacy of antitumor immunotherapy. A tumor-targeting peptide RGD was modified on the TDF to increase the delivery efficiency, and the chemotherapeutant doxorubicin (DOX) was loaded to induce ICD effects, which were assisted by the immune adjuvant of CpG immunologic sequences linked on TDF. We demonstrated that the multifunctional TDF could suppress 4T1 breast tumor growth by increasing tumor infiltration of CD8+ T cells, upregulating granzyme B and perforin expressions to twice as much as the control group, and decreasing 30% CD25+ Treg cells. Furthermore, the combination of alpha-PD-1 could inhibit the growth of distant tumor and suppressed tumor recurrence in a bilateral syngeneic 4T1 mouse model; the distant tumor weight inhibition rate was about 91.6%. Hence, through quantitatively targeting the delivery of DOX to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy and sensitizing the immune response by ICD effects, this multifunctional TDF therapeutic strategy displayed better treatment effect and a promising clinical application prospect.

Automated summary

In this study, a multifunctional tetrahedral DNA framework (TDF) was developed as a drug carrier to recruit chemotherapeutants and trigger immunogenic cell death (ICD) effects, which could turn tumors from cold to hot to boost the efficacy of antitumor immunotherapy.