Sorafenib induces ferroptosis in human cancer cell lines originating from different solid tumors

Ferroptosis is a recently identified form of regulated necrosis that can be experimentally induced in cancer cells with the chemical inducer erastin. Recently, we identified sorafenib, an inhibitor of oncogenic kinases, as an inducer of ferroptosis in hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Whether sorafenib is able to exert its ferroptotic activity in cancer cells originating from other tissues is presently unclear.

We compared the levels of ferroptosis induced by sorafenib with those induced by the reference compound erastin in a panel of ten human cell lines originating from various tissues.

Sorafenib induced ferroptosis in different cancer cell lines. We found a positive correlation between the ferroptotic potency of sorafenib and erastin. Compared to other kinase inhibitors, sorafenib is the only drug that displays ferroptotic efficacy.

The findings establish sorafenib as the first clinically-approved anticancer drug that can induce ferroptosis.