Metabolism and iron signaling in ferroptotic cell death

Programmed cell death (PCD) plays critical roles in development and tissue homeostasis of multicellular organisms, and malfunction of programmed cell death contributes to the pathogenesis of a variety of human diseases, including cancer [1]. While apoptosis had been the main focus of the PCD study for decades, recent advances demonstrate that there exist multiple other forms of cell death that are also genetically “programmed”, such as receptor-interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3)-dependent necroptosis and iron-dependent ferroptosis [1].