Photodynamic Therapy in Combination with Sorafenib for Enhanced Immunotherapy of Lung Cancer

The emerging of cancer immunotherapy is a great progress in cancer therapy. However, accumulating evidences have shown that tumor microenvironment (TME) exerted strong inhibition effects on cancer immunotherapy. In order to solve this issue, a cell membrane vehicle (CMV) was developed and employed to encapsulate both chlorins e6 (Ce6) and sorafenib (Sfn). The obtained drug delivery system (DDS, CMV/C-S was expected to enhance the immune response in cancer therapy by remodeling the TME. The results showed that CMV/C-S was highly stable under physiological environment with responsive drug release upon laser irradiations and high tumor targetability, which all contributed to promising anticancer performance in vitro / in vivo. Especially, the photodynamic nature of Ce6 could exert significant immunogenic cell death (ICD) to trigger immune response. At the same time, with the TME regulation effects of Sfn, the outcome of cancer immunotherapy was significantly enhanced as compare to mono-therapies. The study offers a novel approach for effective cancer immunotherapy.