Self-eating and self-killing: crosstalk between autophagy and apoptosis.
The functional relationship between apoptosis ('self-killing') and autophagy ('self-eating') is complex in the sense that, under certain circumstances, autophagy constitutes a stress adaptation that avoids cell death (and suppresses apoptosis), whereas in other cellular settings, it constitutes an alternative cell-death pathway. Autophagy and apoptosis may be triggered by common upstream signals, and sometimes this results in combined autophagy and apoptosis; in other instances, the cell switches between the two responses in a mutually exclusive manner. On a molecular level, this means that the apoptotic and autophagic response machineries share common pathways that either link or polarize the cellular responses.
Maiuri
M Chiara
MC
INSERM, U848, F-94805 Villejuif, France.
Zalckvar
Einat
E
Kimchi
Adi
A
Kroemer
Guido
G
D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology*; D001343:Autophagy / Q000502:physiology*; D002453:Cell Cycle; D006801:Humans; D015398:Signal Transduction