Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professionals, St. John's University, Queens, NY 11439, USA.
College of Pharmacy, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
Cells. 2012 Aug 23;1(3):558-75. doi: 10.3390/cells1030558.
All the therapeutic strategies for treating cancers aim at killing the cancer cells via apoptosis (programmed cell death type I). Defective apoptosis endow tumor cells with survival. The cell can respond to such defects with autophagy. Autophagy is a cellular process by which cytoplasmic material is either degraded to maintain homeostasis or recycled for energy and nutrients in starvation. A plethora of evidence has shown that the role of autophagy in tumors is complex. A lot of effort is needed to underline the functional status of autophagy in tumor progression and treatment, and elucidate how to tweak autophagy to treat cancer. Furthermore, during the treatment of cancer, the limitation for the cure rate and survival is the phenomenon of multi drug resistance (MDR). The development of MDR is an intricate process that could be regulated by drug transporters, enzymes, anti-apoptotic genes or DNA repair mechanisms. Reports have shown that autophagy has a dual role in MDR. Furthermore, it has been reported that activation of a death pathway may overcome MDR, thus pointing the importance of other death pathways to regulate tumor cell progression and growth. Therefore, in this review we will discuss the role of autophagy in MDR tumors and a possible link amongst these phenomena.
所有治疗癌症的策略都旨在通过细胞凋亡（I 型程序性细胞死亡）杀死癌细胞。凋亡缺陷赋予肿瘤细胞存活能力。细胞可以通过自噬来应对这种缺陷。自噬是一种细胞过程，通过该过程细胞质物质被降解以维持平衡或在饥饿时回收用于能量和营养。大量证据表明，自噬在肿瘤中的作用是复杂的。需要付出大量努力来强调自噬在肿瘤进展和治疗中的功能状态，并阐明如何调整自噬来治疗癌症。此外，在癌症治疗过程中，治愈率和存活率的限制是多药耐药（MDR）现象。MDR 的发展是一个复杂的过程，可通过药物转运蛋白、酶、抗凋亡基因或 DNA 修复机制进行调节。有报道表明，自噬在 MDR 中具有双重作用。此外，有报道称激活死亡途径可能克服 MDR，从而指出其他死亡途径对于调节肿瘤细胞进展和生长的重要性。因此，在这篇综述中，我们将讨论自噬在 MDR 肿瘤中的作用以及这些现象之间的可能联系。
