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Xiaoxue Lang,1 Xiangtao Wang,1 Meihua Han,1 Yifei Guo1– 4 1Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Key Laboratory of Bioactive Substances and Resources Utilization of Chinese Herbal Medicine, Ministry of Education, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Key Laboratory of New Drug Discovery Based on Classic Chinese Medicine Prescription, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 4Beijing Key Laboratory of Innovative Drug Discovery of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Natural Medicine) and Translational Medicine, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Yifei Guo, Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, No. 151, Malianwa North Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 18810811910, Email ffguo@163.comAbstract: Until now, there has been a lack of effective strategies for cancer treatment. Immunotherapy has high potential in treating several cancers but its efficacy is limited as a monotherapy. Chemoimmunotherapy (CIT) holds promise to be widely used in cancer treatment. Therefore, identifying their involvement and potential synergy in CIT approaches is decisive. Nano-based drug delivery systems (NDDSs) are ideal delivery systems because they can simultaneously target immune cells and cancer cells, promoting drug accumulation, and reducing the toxicity of the drug. In this review, we first introduce five current immunotherapies, including immune checkpoint blocking (ICB), adoptive cell transfer therapy (ACT), cancer vaccines, oncolytic virus therapy (OVT) and cytokine therapy. Subsequently, the immunomodulatory effects of chemotherapy by inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD), promoting tumor killer cell infiltration, down-regulating im

Xi Wang,1 Xinxin Liu,1 Yaoyao Guo,1,2 Tingting Gong,1 Wenmin Lu,1,3 Meihua Han,1 Yifei Guo,1 Xiangtao Wang1 1Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, People’s Republic of China; 3College of Pharmacy, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiangtao Wang, Institute of Medicinal Plant Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 151, Malianwa North Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-10-57833266, Email xtaowang@163.comBackground: Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease globally accounting for approximately 1 million new cases annually. Chemotherapy remains the main therapeutic option, but the antitumor efficacy needs to be improved.Methods: Two multifunctional nanoparticles were developed in this paper using oleic acid and mPEG2k-PCL2k as the drug carriers. Squamocin (Squ) was employed as a chemotherapeutic agent. Resiquimod (R848) or ginsenoside Rh2 was co-encapsulated in the nanoparticles to remold the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, and IR780 was coloaded as a photosensitizer to realize photothermal therapy.Results: The obtained Squ-R848-IR780 nanoparticles and Squ-Rh2-IR780 nanoparticles were uniformly spherical and approximately (162.200 ± 2.800) nm and (157.300 ± 1.1590) nm, respectively, in average diameter, with good encapsulation efficiency (above 85% for each drug), excellent stability in various physiological media and high photothermal conversion efficiency (24.10% and 22.58%, respectively). After intravenous administration, both nanoparticles quickly accumulated in the tumor and effectively enhanced the local temperature of the tumor to over 45 °C when irradiated b