Autophagy-dependent suppression of cancer immunogenicity and effector mechanisms of innate and adaptive immunity

The inspection of the mechanisms through which autophagy modulates immunogenic cell death revealed that the autophagic response of cancer cells to reactive oxygen species-dependent endoplasmic reticulum stress suppresses the exposure of calreticulin on the cell surface, the phenotypic maturation of dendritic cells (DCs) as well as their ability to release interleukin-6 and to support the proliferative expansion of (interferon γ-producing) CD4(+) and CD8(+) T lymphocytes. These findings unveil an unprecedented role for therapy-induced autophagy in suppressing key mechanisms that underlie anticancer immune responses as elicited by immunogenic cell death.