Packing-accelerated consecutive NIR excitation (PACE) enables high energy photocatalysis and antitumor immunity in vivo.

Near-infrared (NIR) photocatalysis promises deep-tissue compatibilities but remains fundamentally constrained by two bottlenecks: insufficient photon energy and rapid charge recombination. Here, we report packing-accelerated consecutive excitation (PACE), a mechanism enabling low energy near-infrared (NIR) photons to drive high energy single electron transfer (SET) reactions. We design a self-assembling ruthenium complex, Ru-3, that forms densely packed nanoaggregates exhibiting aggregation-stabilized excited states, a pronounced excited state absorption band at ∼1315 nm, and nanosecond scale triplet lifetimes. Under dual NIR-I/IIa irradiation (808 nm/1310 nm), Ru-3 nanoparticles exhibit photophysical behavior consistent with consecutive photon harvesting and access to a higher-energy reactive state that supports efficient SET catalysis under aqueous conditions. This PACE-driven reactivity enables robust oxidation of mitochondrial NADH to NAD+, disrupting electron-transport homeostasis, inducing cGAS-STING dependent pyroptosis, and reprogramming tumor-associated macrophages toward an M1 phenotype. In multiple murine tumor models, PACE-mediated photocatalysis elicits strong antitumor immunity and leads to tumor regression with minimal systemic toxicity. This work establishes PACE as a new photochemical paradigm that overcomes the intrinsic energy and charge-separation limits of NIR photoredox chemistry, opening a route toward high-energy photocatalysis in complex biological environments.
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Authors

Liu Liu, Wang Wang, Hu Hu, Guo Guo, Mahmood Mahmood, Liao Liao, Pan Pan, Wang Wang, Wang Wang, Zhang Zhang, Jia Jia, Zhang Zhang, Zeng Zeng, Huang Huang, Fan Fan, Hong Hong, Sun Sun, Xiao Xiao
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