Compared to the control, all three treatments exhibited inhibitory effects on metastasis to different extents, while the combinatory therapy showed the best performance. effectiveness of immunotherapy by inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD) of malignancy. However, the SDT effectiveness IL-22BP is extremely limited by Nrf2-based natural redox balance rules pathway in malignancy cells in response to the improved material of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Nuclear-targeting strategy has shown unique advantages in tumor therapy by directly destroying the DNA. Thus Synephrine (Oxedrine) it can be seen that Nrf2-siRNA augmented nuclear-targeting SDT could boost ICB therapy against colorectal malignancy. Results The nuclear-targeting delivery system TIR@siRNA (TIR was the abbreviation of put together TAT-IR780) with great gene carrier capacity and smaller diameter ( 60 nm) was designed to accomplish the gene augmented nuclear-targeting SDT facilitating the anti-PD-L1 (programmed cell death-ligand-1) therapy against colorectal malignancy. In CT26 cells, TIR@siRNA successfully delivered IR780 (the fluorescent dye used as sonosensitizer) into cell nucleus and Nrf2-siRNA into cytoplasm. Under US (utrasound) irradiation, TIR@siRNA notably improved the cytotoxicity and apoptosis-inducing activity of SDT through down-regulating the Nrf2, directly damaging the Synephrine (Oxedrine) DNA, activating mitochondrial apoptotic pathway while amazingly inducing ICD of CT26 cells. In CT26 tumor-bearing mice, TIR@siRNA mediated gene enhanced nuclear-targeting SDT greatly inhibited tumor growth, noticeably improved the T cell infiltration and boosted DPPA-1 peptide-based anti-PD-L1 therapy to ablate the primary CT26 tumors and suppress the intestinal metastases. Conclusions All results demonstrate that TIR@siRNA under US irradiation can efficiently inhibit the tumor progression toward colorectal CT26 malignancy in vitro and in vivo by its mediated gene augmented nuclear-targeting sonodynamic therapy. Through fully reducing the immunosuppressive microenvironment of colorectal malignancy by this treatment, this nanoplatform provides a fresh synergistic strategy for enhancing the anti-PD-L1 therapy to ablate colorectal malignancy and inhibit its metastasis. Graphical Abstract Supplementary Info The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-021-01094-x. 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results and discussion Synthesis, preparation and characterization of the TIR@siRNA nanoparticles The dye IR780, with superb NIR fluorescence properties, has been promisingly applied like a sonosensitizer in SDT in earlier studies [34, 35]. Due to its strong lipophilicity and lack of modifiable organizations, the biomedical applications of IR780 are limited to a great degree. Numerous studies possess improved the hydrophilicity of IR780 by using nanomaterials (e.g., micelles, mesoporous silica and liposomes) through physical encapsulation. Here, we used a chemically coupled approach to improve the hydrophilicity of IR780 for software in SDT against malignancy. The TAT peptide with better water solubility reacted with IR780 through a substitution reaction, and the chemical structure of the product TAT-IR780 is demonstrated in Plan ?Scheme1A.1A. Thin-layer chromatography was used to confirm the formation of the new substances. The chromatographic behaviors of the product, IR780 and TAT peptide mixed with IR780 were completely different, as observed from Additional file 1:?Fig. S1A. Furthermore, the molecular excess weight of TAT-IR780 was characterized by using Synephrine (Oxedrine) mass spectrometry and determined to be 2165 from your peaks of the tetravalent, trivalent and bivalent ions observed at m/z 541.8, 722.6 and 1083.7, respectively (Additional file 1:?Fig. S1B). The determined molecular excess weight of TAT-IR780 was consistent with the value given by ChemDraw software, demonstrating the successful synthesis of TAT-IR780. Next, we assessed the gene loading capacity of TAT-IR780 to weight Nrf2-siRNA through a gel retardation assay due to the high positive charge of the TAT peptide. As demonstrated in Fig.?1A, the migration of Nrf2-siRNA was completely inhibited when the N/P percentage was increased to 32/1. Therefore, the zeta potentials of TIR and the nanocomplexes with N/P ratios of 32/1 and 64/1 were +?34.2 mV, +?11.9 mV and +?22.5 mV, respectively. Considering the zeta potential, in an effort to make the prepared particles more compact and smaller to meet the need for nuclear focusing on.