Cargando…

Autophagy Modulation in Cancer: Current Knowledge on Action and Therapy

In the last two decades, accumulating evidence pointed to the importance of autophagy in various human diseases. As an essential evolutionary catabolic process of cytoplasmatic component digestion, it is generally believed that modulating autophagic activity, through targeting specific regulatory ac...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Marinković, Mija, Šprung, Matilda, Buljubašić, Maja, Novak, Ivana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Hindawi 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831833/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29643976
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2018/8023821
Descripción
Sumario:In the last two decades, accumulating evidence pointed to the importance of autophagy in various human diseases. As an essential evolutionary catabolic process of cytoplasmatic component digestion, it is generally believed that modulating autophagic activity, through targeting specific regulatory actors in the core autophagy machinery, may impact disease processes. Both autophagy upregulation and downregulation have been found in cancers, suggesting its dual oncogenic and tumor suppressor properties during malignant transformation. Identification of the key autophagy targets is essential for the development of new therapeutic agents. Despite this great potential, no therapies are currently available that specifically focus on autophagy modulation. Although drugs like rapamycin, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, and others act as autophagy modulators, they were not originally developed for this purpose. Thus, autophagy may represent a new and promising pharmacologic target for future drug development and therapeutic applications in human diseases. Here, we summarize our current knowledge in regard to the interplay between autophagy and malignancy in the most significant tumor types: pancreatic, breast, hepatocellular, colorectal, and lung cancer, which have been studied in respect to autophagy manipulation as a promising therapeutic strategy. Finally, we present an overview of the most recent advances in therapeutic strategies involving autophagy modulators in cancer.