title: Parkinson's disease and autophagy.
abstract: It is generally accepted that a correlation between neurodegenerative disease and protein aggregation in the brain exists; however, a causal relationship has not been elucidated. In neurons, failure of autophagy may result in the accumulation of aggregate-prone proteins and subsequent neurodegeneration. Thus, pharmacological induction of autophagy to enhance the clearance of intracytoplasmic aggregate-prone proteins has been considered as a therapeutic strategy to ameliorate pathology in cell and animal models of neurodegenerative disorders. However, autophagy has also been found to be a factor in the onset of these diseases, which raises the question of whether autophagy induction is an effective therapeutic strategy, or, on the contrary, can result in cell death. In this paper, we will first describe the autophagic machinery, and we will consider the literature to discuss the neuroprotective effects of autophagy.
authors.affiliation: Clinical and Experimental Neuroscience (NiCE-CIBERNED), School of Medicine, Jaume I University, 12071 Castelló de la Plana, Spain ; Department of Medicine, School of Health Sciences, Jaume I University, Campus Riu Sec, 12071 Castelló de la Plana, Spain.
authors.forename: Ana María
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Pérez
authors.forename: Berta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Claramonte-Clausell
authors.forename: Juan Vicente
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Sánchez-Andrés
authors.forename: María Trinidad
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Herrero