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Mechanisms of autophagy and relevant small-molecule compounds for targeted cancer therapy

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Abstract

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved, multi-step lysosomal degradation process for the clearance of damaged or superfluous proteins and organelles. Accumulating studies have recently revealed that autophagy is closely related to a variety of types of cancer; however, elucidation of its Janus role of either tumor-suppressive or tumor-promoting still remains to be discovered. In this review, we focus on summarizing the context-dependent role of autophagy and its complicated molecular mechanisms in different types of cancer. Moreover, we discuss a series of small-molecule compounds targeting autophagy-related proteins or the autophagic process for potential cancer therapy. Taken together, these findings would shed new light on exploiting the intricate mechanisms of autophagy and relevant small-molecule compounds as potential anti-cancer drugs to improve targeted cancer therapy.

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Funding

We are grateful to Prof. Canhua Huang (Sichuan University) for his good suggestions on this manuscript. This work was supported by grants from National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFC0909301 and Grant No. 2017YFC0909302) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81673455, Grant No. 81602130, Grant No. 81473091 and Grant No. 81673290).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Center, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Biotherapy, Chengdu, 610041, China

      Jin Zhang, Guan Wang, Yuxin Zhou, Liang Ouyang & Bo Liu

    2. College of Biological Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

      Yuxin Zhou

    3. Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610041, China

      Yi Chen

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    1. Jin Zhang
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    3. Yuxin Zhou
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    4. Yi Chen
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    Correspondence to Yi Chen or Bo Liu.

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    Jin Zhang, Guan Wang, and Yuxin Zhou contributed equally to this work.

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    Zhang, J., Wang, G., Zhou, Y. et al. Mechanisms of autophagy and relevant small-molecule compounds for targeted cancer therapy. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 75, 1803–1826 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-018-2759-2

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