Biomimetic porous silicon for rationally designed combination therapy to induce immunogenic cell death

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) has a poor prognosis due to low response to receptor-targeted therapy and immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment. Combined chemotherapy and photothermal therapy (CHT-PTT) is promising for treating metastatic cancers with enhanced therapy efficacy. It enables the synergistic induction of immunogenic cell death (ICD), while sensitising suppressive tumour microenvironment. However, the optimal setup of CHT-PTT to induce ICD has remained obscure. Here, cancer cell membrane-coated black porous silicon was utilized as both drug carriers and photothermal conversion agents. Cell membrane coating endows biomimetic homotypic targeting. Six chemotherapeutic drugs with different inhibition mechanisms were tested against TNBC cells to evaluate their ICD induction potentials. Further, the effect of temperature was evaluated in CHT-PTT. (+)-JQ-1 was found as the optimal drug, and the mild-hyperthermia temperature of 45 °C was the best temperature setting in CHT-PTT to induce ICD. Thus, our study provides rationally designed CHT-PTT regimen for efficient cancer treatment.