Immunogenic cell death

According to the danger model, the immune system is activated by endogenous molecules known as danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMP) that are externalized from the interior of a dying cell to the cell surface or released into the extracellular space. Due to the loss of plasma membrane integrity a necrotic cell death as well as several types of proinflammatory programmed cell death are considered to be immunogenic, whereas apoptosis, on contrary, has been initially defined as a tolerogenic type of cell death. However, under certain circumstances, the immune response can be initiated by an apoptotic cell after exnternalization of DAMP molecules by newly described secretory pathways. This phenomenon was observed on tumor cells as a result of some widely used therapeutic modalities and is known as immunogenic cell death (ICD). Nomenclature of selected types of cell death is part of this thesis. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to provide an evidence of the experimental support for ICD theory during in vivo initiation of the immune response. I will evaluate the correlation between ICD and the induced exposure of DAMP molecules on the surface of tumor cells or their secretion to the extracellular space