Berardi Damian E, Campodónico Paola B, Díaz Bessone Maria Ines, Urtreger Alejandro J, Todaro Laura B
Research Area, Institute of Oncology "Angel H. Roffo", University of Buenos Aires, C1417DTB Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Int J Breast Cancer. 2011;2011:595092. doi: 10.4061/2011/595092. Epub 2011 Sep 8.
Autophagy is a catabolic process responsible for the degradation and recycling of long-lived proteins and organelles by lysosomes. This degradative pathway sustains cell survival during nutrient deprivation, but in some circumstances, autophagy leads to cell death. Thereby, autophagy can serve as tumor suppressor, as the reduction in autophagic capacity causes malignant transformation and spontaneous tumors. On the other hand, this process also functions as a protective cell-survival mechanism against environmental stress causing resistance to antineoplastic therapies. Although autophagy inhibition, combined with anticancer agents, could be therapeutically beneficial in some cases, autophagy induction by itself could lead to cell death in some apoptosis-resistant cancers, indicating that autophagy induction may also be used as a therapy. This paper summarizes the most important findings described in the literature about autophagy and also discusses the importance of this process in clinical settings.
自噬是一种分解代谢过程，负责通过溶酶体对长寿蛋白和细胞器进行降解和再循环。这种降解途径在营养剥夺期间维持细胞存活，但在某些情况下，自噬会导致细胞死亡。因此，自噬可作为肿瘤抑制因子，因为自噬能力的降低会导致恶性转化和自发性肿瘤。另一方面，这个过程也作为一种保护性细胞存活机制，抵抗导致对抗肿瘤治疗产生抗性的环境应激。尽管在某些情况下，自噬抑制与抗癌药物联合使用可能具有治疗益处，但在一些抗凋亡癌症中，自噬诱导本身可能导致细胞死亡，这表明自噬诱导也可用于治疗。本文总结了文献中描述的关于自噬的最重要发现，并讨论了这一过程在临床环境中的重要性。
