For cancer and infections, activating mitochondrial DAMP release could boost immunity. Some chemotherapy drugs work partly by triggering immunogenic cell death that releases mitochondrial DAMPs. Radiation therapy activates similar pathways. The central insight is that mitochondrial quality control and inflammation are mechanistically linked. The same cellular machinery that maintains energy metabolism also determines inflammatory state.
When mitochondria function properly and damaged ones get cleared efficiently, inflammation remains appropriately regulated. When quality control fails, mitochondrial DAMPs drive pathological inflammatory responses. Your immune system treats broken mitochondria like invading bacteria because, evolutionarily, that's exactly what they once were.