The role of autophagy in resistance to targeted therapies.
Autophagy is a self-degradative cellular process, involved in stress response such as starvation, hypoxia, and oxidative stress. This mechanism balances macro-molecule recycling to regulate cell homeostasis. In cancer, autophagy play a role in the development and progression, while several studies describe it as one of the key processes in drug resistance. In the last years, in addition to standard anti-cancer treatments such as chemotherapies and irradiation, targeted therapy became one of the most adopted strategies in clinical practices, mainly due to high specificity and reduced side effects. However, similar to standard treatments, drug resistance is the main challenge in most patients. Here, we summarize recent studies that investigated the role of autophagy in drug resistance after targeted therapy in different types of cancers. We highlight positive results and limitations of pre-clinical and clinical studies in which autophagy inhibitors are used in combination with targeted therapies.
['Mele|Luigi|L|', 'Del Vecchio|Vitale|V|', 'Liccardo|Davide|D|', 'Prisco|Claudia|C|', 'Schwerdtfeger|Melanie|M|', 'Robinson|Nirmal|N|', 'Desiderio|Vincenzo|V|', 'Tirino|Virginia|V|', 'Papaccio|Gianpaolo|G|', 'La Noce|Marcella|M|']
D000818:Animals D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal D000074322:Antineoplastic Agents, Immunological D001343:Autophagy D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm D006801:Humans D000922:Immunotoxins D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy D009369:Neoplasms D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors D054852:Small Molecule Libraries
Autophagy Targeted therapy Drug resistance Monoclonal antibodies Tyrosine kinase inhibitors