Nano-Pulse Stimulation is a physical modality that can trigger immunogenic tumor cell death

Background We have been developing a non-thermal, drug-free tumor therapy called Nano-Pulse Stimulation (NPS) that delivers ultrashort electric pulses to tumor cells which eliminates the tumor and inhibits secondary tumor growth. We hypothesized that the mechanism for inhibiting secondary tumor growth involves stimulating an adaptive immune response via an immunogenic form of apoptosis, commonly known as immunogenic cell death (ICD). ICD is characterized by the emission of danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) that serve to recruit immune cells to the site of the tumor. Here we present evidence that NPS stimulates both caspase 3/7 activation indicative of apoptosis, as well as the emission of three critical DAMPs: ecto-calreticulin (CRT), ATP and HMGB1.