You can use the scipy.io.loadmat function to load the cell array of strings from a MATLAB .mat file into a Python list or tuple. Here is an example:

Suppose you have a MATLAB file named "example.mat" that contains a cell array of strings named "myStrings", which you want to load into a Python list or tuple.

In MATLAB: 

myStrings = {'foo', 'bar', 'baz'};
save('example.mat', 'myStrings');

In Python: 

import scipy.io

# Load the .mat file
mat_contents = scipy.io.loadmat('example.mat')

# Extract the cell array of strings
mat_strings = mat_contents['myStrings']

# Convert the cell array to a Python list
py_strings = [s[0] for s in mat_strings]

# Alternatively, you can convert it to a tuple
py_tuple = tuple(s[0] for s in mat_strings)

In the above example, we first load the contents of the MATLAB .mat file using scipy.io.loadmat. We then extract the cell array of strings by accessing the dictionary key 'myStrings' in the loaded data.

Next, we convert the cell array to a Python list using a list comprehension that iterates over each element of the cell array and extracts the string value using [0] since the strings are stored as one-element arrays in the MATLAB cell array. Finally, we can convert the list to a tuple using the built-in tuple function.