Autophagy: Cell death or survive mechanism

摘要

Cell death has been traditionally thought to occur via one of two mechanisms: “programmed” (genetically controlled) or “uncontrolled”. Apoptosis is considered to represent the major form of programmed cell death and is under the control of specialized genes and pathways. In contrast, necrosis involves uncontrolled cellular death occurring after acute physical trauma or stressors overwhelming the cellular survival mechanisms. However, recent studies have shown that necrosis may also occur in a programmed manner in certain circumstances (necroptosis). Again, cancer cells have been recently shown to exploit impaired programmed cellular death mechanisms in order to develop tolerance against stress and starvation via certain pathways such as the catabolic autophagy pathway. Subsequently, cancer cells have the need of impaired programmed cellular death mechanisms in order to survive and maintain mobility in physiological conditions, even if it is not for maintaining viability.