Virus-triggered autophagy in viral hepatitis - possible novel strategies for drug development

Abstract

Autophagy is a very tightly regulated process that is important in many cellular processes including development, differentiation, survival, and homeostasis. The importance of this process has already been proven in numerous common diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. Emerging data indicate that autophagy plays an important role in some liver disease including liver injury induced by ischemia reperfusion and alpha-1 antitrypsin Z allele dependent liver disease.Autophagy may also occur in viral infection, and it may play a crucial role in antimicrobial host defense against pathogens, while supporting cellular homeostasis processes. Here the latest findings on the role of autophagy in viral hepatitis B and C infection, which are both serious health threats, will be reviewed.3

Diet-induced obesity impairs spermatogenesis: a potential role for autophagy

“…Autophagy has been implicated in the pathogenesis of different diseases such as cancer4344, liver disease454647, kidney disease4849, neurodegenerative disease5051 and cardiovascular disease5253. Autophagy was also found to be associated with sperm survival545556, and a recent study also showed that autophagy and apoptosis work synergistically to induce germ cell death during mouse spermatogenesis30.…”

Autophagy, Apoptosis, Mitoptosis and Necrosis: Interdependence Between Those Pathways and Effects on Cancer

“…Beside environmental factors, viral infections and life-style are responsible factors for its increasing frequency (Alavian et al 2011;Gurevich-Panigrahi et al 2009). Natural products are a frequent inspiration for the development of new anti-cancer drugs (Ghavami et al 2010;Gokay et al 2010;Panigrahi et al 2012).…”

“…As outlined above, much attention in recent years has been paid to experimental drugs that modulate autophagy or apoptosis. While several promising experimental anti-cancer or anti-degenerative drugs that could modulate both pathways have been developed, one has to exercise some caution with respect to autophagy modulating drugs (Alavian et al 2011). Modulation of autophagy alone will not possibly show much clinical effect, due to its highly interconnected nature and the fact that low-level autophagy would generally promote cell survival, and that autophagy process will kill the targeted cell only when it is excessive.…”

Beteiligung biologischer Wege an der Entwicklung entzündlicher Darmerkrankungen

“…The execution of cell death requires an orchestrated interplay between three important processes: apoptosis, necrosis and autophagy [121]. Various cell death stimuli may trigger some of these pathways simultaneously and/or activate common downstream elements [82,[122][123][124].…”