The multifaceted role of autophagy in tumor evasion from immune surveillance
Abstract
While autophagy is constitutively executed at basal level in all cells, it is activated in cancer cells in response to various microenvironmental stresses including hypoxia. It is now well established that autophagy can act both as tumor suppressor or tumor promoter. In this regard, several reports indicate that the tumor suppressor function of autophagy is associated with its ability to scavenge damaged oxidative organelles, thereby preventing the accumulation of toxic oxygen radicals and limiting the genome instability. Paradoxically, in developed tumors, autophagy can promote the survival of cancer cells and therefore operates as a cell resistance mechanism. The consensus appears to be that autophagy has a dual role in suppressing tumor initiation and in promoting the survival of established tumors. This has inspired significant interest in applying anti-autophagy therapies as an entirely new approach to cancer treatment. While much remains to be learned about the regulation and context-dependent biological role of autophagy, it is now well established that modulation of this process could be an attractive approach for the development of novel anticancer therapeutic strategies. In this review, we will summarize recent report...Continue Reading
References
Hypoxia signals autophagy in tumor cells via AMPK activity, independent of HIF-1, BNIP3, and BNIP3L.
Citations
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