Fig. 8: Systemic antitumor immunity induced by aAGd-NW-sensitized radiation.

a Schematic illustration of aAGd-NWs sensitized radiation-mediated in situ vaccine. Created with BioRender.com. b–d Tumor growth curves (b), isolated tumor photographs (c), and tumor weights (d) of BALB/c mice immunized with RT and aAGd-NWs+RT treated tumor cells, respectively (n = 8 mice). e Flow cytometry analysis of CD11c⁺ and H2Kb-SIINFEKL⁺ DCs in TDLNs after Vehicle, GGd-NCPs, aAGd-NWs, Vehicle+RT, GGd-NCPs+RT, aAGd-NWs+RT treatments (n = 3 mice). f Flow cytometry analysis of DCs maturation (CD80⁺ and CD86⁺ gated within CD11c⁺) in TDLNs (n = 8 mice). g Tumor growth curves of CT26 colorectal tumor-bearing mice (n = 8 mice). Black and red arrows indicated drug/radiation and anti-CD8a/anti-PD-L1 treatments, respectively. RT (5 Gy × 2) was performed on day 0 and 6, respectively. Anti-CD8a/anti-PD-L1 antibodies (10.0 mg kg⁻¹ × 4 with fractions delivered 3 days apart) were administered via intraperitoneal injection 6 h after X-ray irradiation. h, i Percentages of CD4⁺ (h) and CD8⁺ (i) T cells infiltrating within tumor tissues as detected by flow cytometry (n = 4 mice for the combinational group and n = 6 mice for other groups). j Relative multiples of IFN-γ secretion in the tumor tissues as detected by ELISA kit (n = 4 mice for the combinational group and n = 6 mice for other groups). All data were shown as mean ± SD. Two-tailed Student’s t-test was used to calculate statistical differences between two groups, and one-way ANOVA analysis of variance was used for multiple groups. p values > 0.05 represented nonsignificance (N.S.) and p values < 0.05 represented statistically significant. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.