Calreticulin Exposure in Mitotic Catastrophe

Mitotic catastrophe is a modality of cell death (or occasionally senescence) that occurs after cells enter, and fail to resolve, abnormal mitosis, for instance after DNA damage or perturbations of the cell cycle. Mitotic catastrophe can avoid the generation of neoplastic cells from premalignant precursors, yet may also occur in cancer cells as a result of radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Of note, vinca alkaloids and taxanes, which are both known for affecting the stability of microtubules, can trigger mitotic catastrophe. Such agents can also cause cancer cells to undergo immunogenic cell death (ICD), which allows therapeutic responses to last beyond treatment discontinuation due to the induction of an antitumor immune response. ICD is commonly characterized by the exposure of the endoplasmic reticulum protein calreticulin on the cell surface. Here we describe an immunofluorescence-based cytofluorometric technique to detect calreticulin exposure on tumor cells exposed to drugs that induce mitotic catastrophe.