Rui Kang, Guido Kroemer, Daolin Tang
Vitamins are essential micronutrients traditionally viewed as passive cofactors that sustain cellular homeostasis. Emerging evidence challenges this notion, identifying vitamins as active regulators of cell fate that tune the threshold for regulated cell death. Through coordinated control of redox balance, metabolic pathways, and signaling networks, vitamins shape cellular susceptibility to diverse death programs. Their effects are highly context-dependent, enabling both prosurvival and prodeath outcomes depending on dose, cell type, and metabolic state. Recent studies further uncover noncanonical mechanisms linking vitamins to lipid remodeling, membrane trafficking, and organelle integrity. Collectively, these advances establish vitamins as dynamic modulators of cellular vulnerability and highlight their potential as therapeutic targets for selectively manipulating cell death in disease.