Trial Watch: Immunogenic cell death inducers for anticancer chemotherapy

Jonathan Pol, Erika Vacchelli, Fernando Aranda, Francesca Castoldi, Alexander Eggermont, Isabelle Cremer, Catherine Sautès-Fridman, Jitka Fucikova, Jérôme Galon, Radek Spisek, Eric Tartour, Laurence Zitvogel, Guido Kroemer, Lorenzo Galluzzi

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    242 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The term “immunogenic cell death” (ICD) is now employed to indicate a functionally peculiar form of apoptosis that is sufficient for immunocompetent hosts to mount an adaptive immune response against dead cell-associated antigens. Several drugs have been ascribed with the ability to provoke ICD when employed as standalone therapeutic interventions. These include various chemotherapeutics routinely employed in the clinic (e.g., doxorubicin, epirubicin, idarubicin, mitoxantrone, bleomycin, bortezomib, cyclophosphamide and oxaliplatin) as well as some anticancer agents that are still under preclinical or clinical development (e.g., some microtubular inhibitors of the epothilone family). In addition, a few drugs are able to convert otherwise non-immunogenic instances of cell death into bona fide ICD, and may therefore be employed as chemotherapeutic adjuvants within combinatorial regimens. This is the case of cardiac glycosides, like digoxin and digitoxin, and zoledronic acid. Here, we discuss recent developments on anticancer chemotherapy based on ICD inducers.

    Original languageEnglish
    JournalOncoImmunology
    Volume4
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2015

    Keywords

    • Antigen-presenting cell
    • Autophagy
    • Damage-associated molecular pattern
    • Dendritic cell
    • Endoplasmic reticulum stress
    • Type I interferon

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