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Towards a molecular and structural definition of cell death

Cell death contributes to tissue homeostasis and plays critical roles in inflammation and host defense. Our increasing understanding of the physiological importance of cell death underlines the need to more fully elucidate its underlying mechanisms in health and disease. Molecular and structural insight into the cell death apparatus could provide strategies to target the loss of cells in pathophysiological contexts. We asked experts studying a range of cell death types to share with us what they are most excited to tackle and what the field needs for progress.

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Correspondence to Eli Arama, Katia Cosentino, Peter E. Czabotar, Boyi Gan, Elizabeth Hartland, Xuejun Jiang, Jonathan C. Kagan, Shigekazu Nagata, Kate Schroder, Liming Sun, Daichao Xu or Junying Yuan.

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P.E.C. is an employee of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, which has an agreement with Genentech and AbbVie, and receives milestone and royalty payments related to Venetoclax. Employees of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute may be eligible for financial benefits related to these payments. P.E.C. receives such a financial benefit as a result of previous research related to Venetoclax. X.J. is an inventor on patents related to autophagy and cell death, and he holds equity of and consults for Exarta Therapeutics and Lime Therapeutics. J.C.K. receives compensation from and holds equity in Corner Therapeutics, Larkspur Biosciences, MindImmune Therapeutics and Neumora Therapeutics. None of these relationships impacted this study. K.S. is a co-inventor on patent applications for NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors which have been licensed to Inflazome, a company acquired by Roche. K.S. served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Inflazome (Ireland), Quench Bio (USA) and Novartis (Switzerland). All other authors declare no competing interests.

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Arama, E., Cosentino, K., Czabotar, P.E. et al. Towards a molecular and structural definition of cell death. Nat Struct Mol Biol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-025-01646-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-025-01646-x

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