A GSDMD agonist boosts specific antitumor immunity

Abstract

The beneficial role of gasdermin activation and pyroptosis induction in antitumor immunity has been implicated by several studies; however, the question of how to specifically and efficiently activate cancer cell death while minimizing toxicity to host cells remains unsolved. In a recent paper published in Cell, Wu and Lieberman groups identified a GSDMD agonist that can induce low-level pyroptosis in cancer cells but not in host cells, offering potential applications in cancer vaccine development and therapy in combination with checkpoint blockade.