Autophagy in non-neoplastic skin diseases

Abstract

Background: Autophagy is an essential cellular mechanism that plays the "housekeeping" role in normal physiological processes, including the removal of long-lived, harvested, and misfolded proteins, damaged organs. On the other hand, under conditions causing cellular stress, such as malnutrition, hypoxia, oxidative stress, pathogen infections, radiation or cancer medication, there is an increase in the degree of autophagy, which leads to adaptation and cell survival. With the current interest in autophagy, this process appears to affect every organ and modify growing list of disease processes. The skin acts as the first line of defense against different environmental stresses; However, only a few studies have investigated the effect of autophagy on the pathogenesis of skin diseases. The level of autophagy may reflect the degree of some diseases; Therefore, detecting the level of autophagy may be an indirect means to assess some diseases.Objective: to provides an overview of recent findings relevant to the role of autophagy in non-neoplastic skin diseases. Conclusion:Autophagy plays an important role in mitigating or exacerbating various skin diseases. Understanding the mechanisms of autophagy and their regulation in different tissues and cells under healthy and stressful conditions will help better understand the etiology of skin diseases and develop more effective therapeutic approaches.