Department of Biological and Environmental Science and Technology (Di.S.Te.B.A.), University of Salento, Lecce 73100, Italy.
Cancers (Basel). 2013 Mar 21;5(1):296-319. doi: 10.3390/cancers5010296.
Autophagy represents a cell's response to stress. It is an evolutionarily conserved process with diversified roles. Indeed, it controls intracellular homeostasis by degradation and/or recycling intracellular metabolic material, supplies energy, provides nutrients, eliminates cytotoxic materials and damaged proteins and organelles. Moreover, autophagy is involved in several diseases. Recent evidences support a relationship between several classes of nanomaterials and autophagy perturbation, both induction and blockade, in many biological models. In fact, the autophagic mechanism represents a common cellular response to nanomaterials. On the other hand, the dynamic nature of autophagy in cancer biology is an intriguing approach for cancer therapeutics, since during tumour development and therapy, autophagy has been reported to trigger both an early cell survival and a late cell death. The use of nanomaterials in cancer treatment to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs and target tumours is well known. Recently, autophagy modulation mediated by nanomaterials has become an appealing notion in nanomedicine therapeutics, since it can be exploited as adjuvant in chemotherapy or in the development of cancer vaccines or as a potential anti-cancer agent. Herein, we summarize the effects of nanomaterials on autophagic processes in cancer, also considering the therapeutic outcome of synergism between nanomaterials and autophagy to improve existing cancer therapies.
自噬是细胞对压力的反应。它是一种进化上保守的过程，具有多样化的作用。事实上，它通过降解和/或回收细胞内代谢物质来控制细胞内的动态平衡，提供能量，提供营养物质，清除细胞毒性物质和受损的蛋白质和细胞器。此外，自噬还与多种疾病有关。最近的证据支持纳米材料的几类物质与自噬的扰动之间存在关系，包括诱导和阻断，在许多生物模型中都有发现。事实上，自噬机制是细胞对纳米材料的一种常见反应。另一方面，自噬在癌症生物学中的动态性质是癌症治疗的一个有趣方法，因为在肿瘤的发展和治疗过程中，自噬被报道既触发早期细胞存活，也触发晚期细胞死亡。纳米材料在癌症治疗中用于输送化疗药物和靶向肿瘤是众所周知的。最近，纳米材料介导的自噬调节在纳米医学治疗中成为一个有吸引力的概念，因为它可以作为化疗的辅助剂，或者在癌症疫苗的开发中，或者作为一种潜在的抗癌药物。在此，我们总结了纳米材料对癌症中自噬过程的影响，同时也考虑了纳米材料和自噬之间协同作用的治疗效果，以改善现有的癌症治疗方法。
