Abstract

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process that targets cellular organelles and cytoplasmic constituents to the lysosomes for degradation. According to the type of cargo delivery, there are three main types of autophagy systems in mammals: macroautophagy, microautophagy, and chaperone-mediated autophagy. Macroautophagy, often simply (and hereafter) referred to as autophagy, is the best studied autophagic process and focus of this review. Autophagy has been recognized to be a pro-survival mechanism at times of cellular stress including starvation. Besides, increasing evidence indicated the importance of autophagy in in the pathogenesis of several diseases including cancer. But, its role in cancer is more complex and still controversial; it appears to be tumor suppressive during tumorigenesis, but contributes to tumor cell survival during cancer progression. Besides, autophagic capacity was shown to significantly affect responses of cancer cells to anticancer agents and radiation. Even though there is still a gap about how autophagy is regulated in cancer, it appears to provide a promising target for cancer treatment. This review aimed at examining the multiple roles of autophagy as a novel target for cancer therapy..