Publication date: Jun 18, 2024

Selective generation of sufficient pyroptosis inducers at the tumor site without external stimulation holds immense significance for a longer duration of immunotherapy. Here, we report a cascade-amplified pyroptosis inducer CSC that utilizes reactive nitrogen species (RNS), self-supplied from the diffusion-controlled reaction between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO) to potentiate pyroptosis and immunotherapy, while both endogenous mitochondrial ROS stimulated by released camptothecin and released NO initiate pyroptosis. Mechanistically, cascade amplification of the antitumor immune response is prompted by the cooperation of ROS and NO and enhanced by RNS with a long lifetime, which could be used as a pyroptosis trigger to effectively compensate for the inherent drawbacks of ROS, resulting in long-lasting pyroptosis for favoring immunotherapy. Tumor growth is efficiently inhibited in mouse melanoma tumors through the facilitation of reactive oxygen/nitrogen species (RONS)-NO synergy. In summary, our therapeutic approach utilizes supramolecular engineering and nanotechnology to integrate ROS producers and NO donors of tumor-specific stimulus responses into a system that guarantees synchronous generation of these two reactive species to elicit pyroptosis-evoked immune response, while using self-supplied RNS as a pyroptosis amplifier. RONS-NO synergy achieves enhanced and sustained pyroptosis and antitumor immune responses for robust cancer immunotherapy.

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