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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Trends Immunol. 2018 Jul 11;39(8):644–655. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2018.06.001

Figure 1: Radiation-induced secretion of IFN-I is critical for abscopal responses.

Figure 1:

Ionizing radiation leads to the release of tumor associated antigens (TAA) and damaged DNA that can stimulate the production of type-I interferon via the cGAS/STING pathway in tumor cells. The subsequent secretion of IFN-I and interferon-stimulated genes (including CXCL10) promote the recruitment and activation of BATF3-DCs. Once in the tumor, BATF3-DCs take up the TAA and tumor-derived DNA to further stimulate the production of IFN-I. Activated BATF3-DCs then migrate to the tumor draining lymph node where they can prime CD8+ T cells to initiate cytotoxic T-cell responses. Once activated, cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) migrate to the irradiated tumor and eliminate residual cancer cells, and to distant metastatic sites leading to systemic tumor regression (abscopal effect).