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Every day, billions of our cells die quietly and in an orderly fashion by activating a cell suicide program known as apoptosis. But others, often when they’re infected with viruses, opt for a messier, more violent form: necroptosis, which harnesses the immune system to attack and kill the body’s own cells.
In recent years, biologists have begun to investigate whether activating necroptosis in cancer cells could similarly coax the immune system into attacking tumors. Now, researchers show that injecting cells undergoing necroptosis into mice’s tumors directs killer T cells to attack the malignancies and slow their growth. In addition, they find that making tumor cells produce a necroptosis-inducing enzyme is enough to kickstart the tumor-stunting process—a strategy the authors think could boost the efficacy of existing immunotherapies. The results were published today (June 21) in Science Immunology.
“It adds more evidence [that targeting] this type of ...
