What is the known function of Atg8?
Atg8 has a key role in the cytoplasm-to-vacuole targeting pathway as it binds to the receptors Atg19 and Atg34, thereby mediating the recruitment of different cargo molecules into autophagosomes [57,58].
Why would you want to inhibit autophagy?
For some cells, autophagy inhibition has little effect or merely slows their growth a bit. For other breast cancer cells, autophagy is essential for survival even in the absence of any added stress. For these cells, simply inhibiting autophagy is sufficient to cause the tumor cells to die.
What is autophagy modulator?
Autophagy modulation is considered to be a promising programmed cell death mechanism to prevent and cure a great number of disorders and diseases.
How is ATG7 related to autophagy?
During the initiation of autophagy, ATG7 acts like an E-1 enzyme for ubiquitin-like proteins (UBL) such as ATG12 and ATG8. ATG7 helps these UBL proteins in targeting their molecule by binding to them and activating their transfer to an E-2 enzyme.
Does metformin cause autophagy?
Metformin, a biguanide anti-diabetic drug, is able to trigger autophagy by AMPK activation and subsequent inhibition of mTOR, which is one of major inhibitor of the autophagic flux14.
Can autophagy be harmful?
Is autophagy good or bad? The dysregulation of autophagy—too little or too much—can be harmful and lead to abnormal cell growth or cell death. For example, halting autophagy for an extended period can impact cell growth and lead to several disorders, including tumor formation.
What are the side effects of autophagy?
Side effects and risks Studies have shown that excessive autophagy may kill cells in the heart, and scientists have linked excessive autophagy to some heart problems. Research has also found that inhibiting autophagy in mice could limit tumor growth and improve responsiveness to cancer treatment.
How does rapamycin induce autophagy?
Therefore, these results imply that Rapamycin can inhibit the mTOR pathway to increase autophagy. In summary, we determined that Rapamycin repressed the proliferation of human NB cell lines and induced autophagy by inhibiting the mTOR pathway.