🇬🇧 Mitochondria at the hub of cell death and immunity in irradiated cancer cells

Abstract

Immunogenic cell death (ICD) is a functionally defined form of regulated cell death that culminates in the initiation of adaptive immune responses with an active effector phase. Radiation therapy (RT) is a bona fide ICD inducer, as
demonstrated preclinically in both prophylactic vaccination assays and in abscopal tumor models. The ability of RT to drive ICD critically impinges on
type I interferon (IFN) secretion by irradiated cancer cells. We demonstrated that ICD elicited by RT in preclinical models of HR+ breast cancer requires mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization (MOMP) and is tonically
inhibited by mitophagy and caspases.