Ferroptosis in cancer and cancer immunotherapy

Abstract The hallmark of tumorigenesis is the successful circumvention of cell death regulation for achieving unlimited replication and immortality. Ferroptosis is a newly identified type of cell death dependent on lipid peroxidation which differs from classical programmed cell death in terms of morphology, physiology and biochemistry. The broad spectrum of injury and tumor tolerance are the main reasons for radiotherapy and chemotherapy failure. The effective rate of tumor immunotherapy as a new treatment method is less than 30%. Ferroptosis can be seen in radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and tumor immunotherapy; therefore, ferroptosis activation may be a potential strategy to overcome the drug resistance mechanism of traditional cancer treatments. In this review, the characteristics and causes of cell death by lipid peroxidation in ferroptosis are briefly described. In addition, the three metabolic regulations of ferroptosis and its crosstalk with classical signaling pathways are summarized. Collectively, these findings suggest the vital role of ferroptosis in immunotherapy based on the interaction of ferroptosis with tumor immunotherapy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, thus, indicating the remarkable potential of ferroptosis in cancer treatment.