The Role of Autophagy in Cancer

A special issue of Life (ISSN 2075-1729). This special issue belongs to the section "Physiology and Pathology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 May 2023) | Viewed by 2853

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Solid Tumor Research Center, Cellular and Molecular Medicine Research Institute, Urmia University of Medical Sciences, Urmia, Iran
Interests: autophagy; extracellular vesicles; exosomes; cancer

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Guest Editor
Institute of Biotechnology, Gebze Technical University, Gebze 41400, Turkey
Interests: cell signalling; apoptosis; mTOR; AMPK
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Guest Editor
Faculty of Engineering And Natural Sciences, Molecular Biology And Genetics, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul, Turkey
Interests: molecular cell biology; cell signaling; molecular cancer biology

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Guest Editor
Koç University Research Center for Translational Medicine (KUTTAM), Istanbul, Turkey
Interests: autophagy; cancer metastasis; tumor microenvironment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Autophagy is a self-degradative process that is important for balancing sources of energy at critical times in development, and in response to nutrient stress. Autophagy also plays a housekeeping role in removing misfolded or aggregated proteins, clearing damaged organelles (e.g., mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, peroxisomes), as well as eliminating intracellular pathogens. Its role in cancer therapy is particularly important.

Indeed, although it is well-accepted that autophagy is vital in several diseases, the majority of clinical studies that involve deliberate attempts to manipulate autophagy have been in cancer therapy, almost always in patients with advanced disease. It is felt that autophagy is an important mechanism to prevent cancer development in both cell-autonomous and non-cell-autonomous methods. Autophagy maintains normal cell homeostasis through the removal of oncogenic protein substrates, toxic unfolded proteins and damaged organelles. This helps to prevent chronic cellular damage and transition into a cancer-initiating cell. Many studies demonstrate that autophagy supplies sufficient nutrients that enable cancer cell growth. However, some studies have indicated that autophagy also suppresses tumor growth, initiation, and development.

In addition, crosslinks between exosome and autophagy pathways contribute to tumorigenesis. The exosome biogenesis pathway is linked to autophagy in different ways, including the fusion of autophagic vesicles with the lysosome to degrade cargo, where autophagy-related proteins may also contribute to exosome generation and secretion. The autophagic proteins have potential as potential cancer biomarkers.

Dr. Jafar Rezaie
Dr. Elif Damla Arisan
Dr. Pınar Obakan Yerlikaya
Dr. Yunus Akkoç
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • autophagy
  • cancer
  • exosomes
  • cell death
  • homeostasis
  • tumor
  • tumorigenesis
  • tumor microenvironment

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

19 pages, 3338 KiB  
Review
Metastasis in Neuroblastoma and Its Link to Autophagy
by Leila Jahangiri
Life 2023, 13(3), 818; https://doi.org/10.3390/life13030818 - 17 Mar 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2308
Abstract
Neuroblastoma is a paediatric malignancy originating from the neural crest that commonly occurs in the abdomen and adrenal gland, leading to cancer-related deaths in children. Distant metastasis can be encountered at diagnosis in greater than half of these neuroblastoma patients. Autophagy, a self-degradative [...] Read more.
Neuroblastoma is a paediatric malignancy originating from the neural crest that commonly occurs in the abdomen and adrenal gland, leading to cancer-related deaths in children. Distant metastasis can be encountered at diagnosis in greater than half of these neuroblastoma patients. Autophagy, a self-degradative process, plays a key role in stress-related responses and the survival of cells and has been studied in neuroblastoma. Accordingly, in the early stages of metastasis, autophagy may suppress cancer cell invasion and migration, while its role may be reversed in later stages, and it may facilitate metastasis by enhancing cancer cell survival. To that end, a body of literature has revealed the mechanistic link between autophagy and metastasis in neuroblastoma in multiple steps of the metastatic cascade, including cancer cell invasion and migration, anoikis resistance, cancer cell dormancy, micrometastasis, and metastatic outbreak. This review aims to take a step forward and discuss the significance of multiple molecular players and compounds that may link autophagy to metastasis and map their function to various metastatic steps in neuroblastoma. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of Autophagy in Cancer)
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