Leveraging engineered mitochondria through intercellular communication network for accelerated transport and delivery

Inspired by the non-transmembrane transfer of mitochondria in cell-to-cell communications, herein, we report an original exploration to accelerate mitochondrial intercellular transport, and its application to exogenous cargo delivery. We discover that deliberate PINK1-targeted mitophagy downregulation elevates mitochondrial transit capacity via multifaceted drivers—morphological adaptation, metabolic reprogramming, and respiratory enhancement. Capitalizing on this, we engineer high-speed mitochondrial vehicles for photosensitizer hitchhiking, with spatiotemporal tracking elucidating its dynamic intercellular transit and physiological impacts. Through mitochondria’s communication network—tunneling nanotubes (TNTs), the mitochondria-photosensitizer cotransporter achieves reinforced intercellular delivery, thereby inducing deep tumor penetration and enhanced photodynamic killing. Our work establishes a transformative mitochondria-hitchhiking platform for overcoming biological barriers in drug delivery and provides mechanistic insights into manipulating intercellular organelle transport for therapeutic applications. This work constructs a ‘mitochondrial autonomous drive’ (MAD) system, which utilizes the downregulation of mitophagy to accelerate mitochondrial intercellular transport through tunneling nanotubes (TNTs), enabling the delivery of exogenous substances for deep penetration and treatment of tumors.