Innate sensing of cancer's non-immunologic hallmarks

• Published in: Current opinion in immunology Vol. 50; pp. 1 - 8
• Main Authors: Seelige, Ruth, Searles, Stephen, Bui, Jack D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-02-2018
• ISSN: 0952-7915; 1879-0372
• DOI: 10.1016/j.coi.2017.09.005

•The cancer cell as a sensing innate cell.•Cancer cells sense intrinsic and extrinsic non-immunologic hallmarks.•Cancer cells sense nucleic acids, proteotoxic stress, oxidative stress, metabolic aberrations.•Innate immune cells sense non-immunologic and immunologic hallmarks.•Innate sensing by PRRs can mediate both immunologic and non-immunologic effector outcomes.
A cancer mass consists of a complex composition of cancer cells, stromal cells, endothelial cells and also immune cells, which can represent more than half of the cellularity of a solid cancer. These immune cells become activated when they sense cancer antigens and stress ligands. Innate immune cells also detect various aspects of cellular stress that characterize a growing tumor mass. These key hallmarks of cellular stress are also detected by the cancer cell itself. In this review, we highlight studies that show that the cancer cell itself could be considered an ‘innate cell’ that senses and reacts to non-immunologic hallmarks of cancer, including displaced nucleic acids, proteotoxic stress, oxidative stress, and metabolic alterations.