Metal-based immunogenic cell death inducers for cancer immunotherapy

Abstract

Immunogenic cell death (ICD) has attracted enormous attention in the last decade due to its unique characteristics of cancer cell death as well as activation of innate and adaptive immune responses against tumour. Many efforts have been made on the screening, identification and discovery of ICD inducers, yielding various ICD inducers validated. In this review, we provide a comprehensive summary on present metal-based ICD inducers and their molecular mechanism to trigger ICD initiation and subsequent protective antitumor immune response, as well as the considerations needed to take into during the validation of ICD in vitro and in vivo. We also seek to provide clues on the future development of metal complexes with enhanced ICD, as well as applications in potentiating antitumor immunity.