title: The emerging role of autophagy in alcoholic liver disease.
abstract: Autophagy is a highly conserved intracellular catabolic pathway that degrades cellular long-lived proteins and organelles. Autophagy is normally activated in response to nutrient deprivation and other stresses as a cell survival mechanism. Accumulating evidence indicates that autophagy plays a critical role in liver pathophysiology, in addition to maintaining hepatic energy and nutrient balance. Alcohol consumption causes hepatic metabolic changes, oxidative stress, accumulation of lipid droplets and damaged mitochondria; all of these can be regulated by autophagy. This review summarizes the recent findings about the role and mechanisms of autophagy in alcoholic liver disease (ALD), and the possible intervention for treating ALD by modulating autophagy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics, The University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, 66160, USA. wxding@kumc.edu
authors.forename: Wen-Xing
authors.initials: WX
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Manley
authors.forename: Hong-Min
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Ni
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy; D000431:Ethanol / Q000009:adverse effects; D006801:Humans; D008108:Liver Diseases, Alcoholic / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology*; D008322:Mammals / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D015398:Signal Transduction
chemical_list: D000431:Ethanol