Biomimetic doxorubicin/ginsenoside co-loading nanosystem for chemoimmunotherapy of acute myeloid leukemia

BACKGROUND: Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) showed limited clinical therapeutic efficiency with chemotherapy for its multi-distributed lesions and hard-to-kill leukemia cells deep in the bone marrow. RESULTS: Here, a biomimetic nanosystem (DR@PLip) based on platelet membrane (PM) coating and doxorubicin (DOX)/ginsenoside (Rg3) co-loading was developed to potentiate the local-to-systemic chemoimmunotherapy for AML. The PM was designed for long-term circulation and better leukemia cells targeting. The participation of Rg3 was proved to enhance the tumor sensitivity to DOX, thus initiating the anti-tumor immune activation and effectively combating the leukemia cells hiding in the bone marrow. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, the strategy that combining immediate chemotherapy with long-term immunotherapy achieved improved therapeutic efficiency and prolonged survival, which provided a new perspective for the clinical treatment of AML. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-022-01491-w.