Recent Progress of Photopyroptosis in Tumor Therapy

Abstract Pyroptosis as a form of immunogenic cell death mediated by the gasdermin protein family not only directly kills tumor cells but also activates systemic anti-tumor immune responses.Traditional chemotherapy drugs induce pyroptosis have limitations such as drug resistance systemic toxicity and inflammatory out of control.Phototherapy mediated by near-infrared light (such as photodynamic therapy photothermal therapy) provides a new direction for the precise activation of pyroptosis with its spatio-temporally controllability and low side effect characteristics.This review systematically summarizes the core mechanism of photopyroptosis and the research progress of immunotherapy initiated by spatio-temporally controlled pyroptosis activation through photo-controlled ROS generation (PDT) photothermal therapy (PTT) photoredox catalysis and photo-synergistic therapy.Although photopyroptosis still faces challenges of inflammation regulation hypoxia in tumor microenvironment and biocompatibility of photosensitizers its advantages of combining photo-control precision and pyroptosis immunogenicity provide an innovative strategy for the transition from local killing to systemic immune activation in tumor treatment.