Fig. 1

Schematic illustration of an endogenous cell hitchhiking nano-Trojan Horse (denoted as MP-MENP) for in situ visualization and photothermal-immunotherapy of MDR bacterial infection. By taking advantage of the selective recognition between mannose and inflammation-associated monocytes, the MP-MENP could be passively piggybacked to infection site by circulating monocytes, and also actively target infiltrated monocytes that are already accumulated in infection microenvironment. As a result, the bacterial infected area was selectively delineated by photoacoustic and magnetic resonance imaging, followed by a potent photothermal ablation for both planktonic and intracellular bacteria. Further combined with the synergistic effect of immunogenic cell death induced by photothermal therapy and macrophage reprogramming by MP-MENP, the antibacterial immunity of infection microenvironment was significantly enhanced, allowing a complete eradication of complicated MRSA infection