title: Interplay between apoptosis and autophagy, a challenging puzzle: new perspectives on antitumor chemotherapies.
abstract: Autophagy is a mechanism of protection against various forms of human diseases, such as cancer, in which autophagy seems to have an extremely complex role. In cancer, there is evidence that autophagy may be oncogenic in some contexts, whereas in others it clearly contributes to tumor suppression. In addition, studies have demonstrated the existence of a complex relationship between autophagy and cell death, determining whether a cell will live or die in response to anticancer therapies. Nevertheless, we still need to complete the autophagy-apoptosis puzzle in the tumor context to better address appropriate chemotherapy protocols with autophagy modulators. Generally, tumor cell resistance to anticancer induced-apoptosis can be overcome by autophagy inhibition. However, when an extensive autophagic stimulus is activated, autophagic cell death is observed. In this review, we discuss some details of autophagy and its relationship with tumor progression or suppression, as well as role of autophagy-apoptosis in cancer treatments.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Farmacologia, Escola Paulista de Medicina, Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP), São Paulo, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: claudia.bincoletto@unifesp.br.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bincoletto
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bechara
authors.forename: G J S
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: C P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Antunes
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Peixoto da-Silva
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muler
authors.forename: R D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Gigli
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Monteforte
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hirata
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jurkiewicz
authors.forename: S S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Smaili
mesh_terms: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017209:Apoptosis; D001343:Autophagy; D002450:Cell Communication; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm; D006801:Humans; D018832:Molecular Chaperones / Q000378:metabolism; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D018832:Molecular Chaperones
keywords: Anticancer therapies; Autophagy; Cell death; Drug resistance; Metastasis