Recent insights into the function of autophagy in cancer

Abstract

Macroautophagy (referred to here as autophagy) is induced by starvation to capture and degrade intracellular proteins and organelles in lysosomes, which recycles intracellular components to sustain metabolism and survival. Autophagy also plays a major homeostatic role in controlling protein and organelle quality and quantity. Dysfunctional autophagy contributes to many diseases. In cancer, autophagy can be neutral, tumor-suppressive, or tumorpromoting in different contexts. Large-scale genomic analysis of human cancers indicates that the loss or mutation of core autophagy genes is uncommon, whereas oncogenic events that activate autophagy and lysosomal biogenesis have been identified. Autophagic flux, however, is difficult to measure in human tumor samples, making functional assessment of autophagy problematic in a clinical setting. Autophagy impacts cellular metabolism, the proteome, and organelle numbers and quality, which alter cell functions in diverse ways. Moreover, autophagy influences the interaction between the tumor and the host by promoting stress adaptation and suppressing activation of innate and adaptive immune responses. Additionally, autophagy can promote a cross-talk between the tumor and the stroma, which can support tumor growth, particularly in a nutrient-limited microenvironment. Thus, the role of autophagy in cancer is determined by nutrient availability, microenvironment stress, and the presence of an immune system. Here we discuss recent developments in the role of autophagy in cancer, in particular how autophagy can promote cancer through suppressing p53 and preventing energy crisis, cell death, senescence, and an anti-tumor immune response.The core autophagy machinery is encoded by autophagyrelated (ATG) genes, of which there are now >30 (Ktistakis and Tooze 2016). These genes and their protein products are regulated by numerous upstream signals, including nutrient availability, stressors, defective organelles, and pathogenic conditions. ATG gene products control the formation of the hallmark double-membrane vesicle, the autophagosome. Other genes encode cargo receptors that direct the cargo to the forming autophagosome. Control of the trafficking machinery then orchestrates fusion of the cargo-laden autophagosomes with lysosomes. Degradative enzymes, contributed by lysosomes, break down the cargo, and the products are exported into the cytoplasm, where they are recycled into metabolic and biosynthetic pathways (Rabinowitz and White 2010;Guo et al. 2016). Under normal nutrient conditions, autophagy functions at a constitutive, low basal level to maintain protein and organelle quality, quantity, and functionality. The ATG genes and autophagy are dramatically induced by starvation and other stressors, which enable cellular and organismal survival. Up-regulation of autophagy is a means to survive nutrient stress, which is conserved from yeast to mammals. More recently, there is a growing appreciation of the role played by ATG genes in modulating intracellular trafficking, endocytosis, exoc...

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