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Despite immunotherapy involving immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized cancer therapy, the clinical efficacy is limited due to ICI resistance. Pyroptosis is a gasdermin-mediated programmed cell death that enhances responses to ICIs. However, nontargeted elicitation of pyroptosis may induce systemic side effects and toxicity. Therefore, we reasonably design and construct a tumor-specific prodrug that combines the heat shock protein 90 inhibitor tanespimycin (17-AAG) with the photosensitizer chlorin e6 (Ce6) to induce pyroptosis, by utilizing the high glutathione level in the tumor microenvironment. The released Ce6 and 17-AAG produce reactive oxygen species by laser triggering, which induces gasdermin E-mediated pyroptosis. Furthermore, 17-AAG reduces myeloid-derived suppressor cells and sensitizes tumors to anti-programmed death-1 (PD-1) therapy. Thus, our prodrug strategy achieves tumor-targeted pyroptosis to suppress tumor growth, thereby improving the response to anti-PD-1 therapy and extending the survival of 4T1 breast tumor-bearing mice. Consequently, this pyroptosis-based prodrug represents a novel strategy for enforcing immunogenic photodynamic therapy.
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