Photodynamic Therapy Enhanced Anticancer Efficacy of Cervical Cancer Through Immune Response Stimulation

Abstract

Recent studies have identified photodynamic therapy (PDT) as a promising approach for cancer treatment. Here in this study, we have constructed hyaluronan (HA) coated metal-organic framework nanoparticles (MOF) as an artificial cell carrier (HA/MOF) to effectively delivery chlorin e6 (Ce6), a commonly adopted photodynamic reagent (HA/MOF/Ce6), to achieve enhanced PDT of cancer. In addition, apart from the generally recognized cytotoxicity induced by reactive oxygen species (ROS), our study also revealed that ROS could further potentiate the maturation of dendritic cells (DCs), which secreted tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-12 (IL)-12 to trigger the following immune responses. Our work not only explore the anticancer feasibility of a new system but also demonstrated the underlining mechanisms responsible for PDT induced anticancer effects, which offers a new perspective to employ and improve the efficacy of PDT and related systems.