Methods for Studying Autophagy Within the Tumor Microenvironment.
Defective autophagy has been linked with many pathologies, including cancer, diabetes, infectious disease, myopathies, heart, liver, lung, and neurodegenerative disease. Autophagy has therefore become an important target in drug discovery. Recent advances have identified new ways to monitor autophagy in vitro and in vivo. Many assays rely on visualizing autophagy-related intracellular markers such as microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3) II, which have posed issues with in vivo and clinical translation of the in vitro assays. Here, we present an overview of current in vitro and in vivo methodologies to measure autophagy with a special focus on the tumor microenvironment.
Hematology/Oncology Division, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Clinical Research Building Room No: 120, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Sengottuvelan
S
Murugan
The Department of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 777 South Tower 34th St and Civic Center Blvd, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA. ravi.amaravadi@uphs.upenn.edu.
Ravi K
RK
Amaravadi
D000818:Animals; D000071182:Autophagosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D001343:Autophagy; D000071183:Autophagy-Related Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D001681:Biological Assay / Q000379:methods*; D015153:Blotting, Western; D006801:Humans; D015151:Immunoblotting; D059016:Tumor Microenvironment
D000071183:Autophagy-Related Proteins
Automated quantitative analyses (AQUA); Autophagic flux; Autophagy; Autophagy modulators; Comparative secretome analysis; High-autophagy cells; Low-autophagy cells; Tumor microenvironment