Abstract

The functional relationship between apoptosis ('self-killing') and autophagy ('self-eating') is complex in the sense that, under certain circumstances, autophagy constitutes a stress adaptation that avoids cell death (and suppresses apoptosis), whereas in other cellular settings, it constitutes an alternative cell-death pathway. Autophagy and apoptosis may be triggered by common upstream signals, and sometimes this results in combined autophagy and apoptosis; in other instances, the cell switches between the two responses in a mutually exclusive manner. On a molecular level, this means that the apoptotic and autophagic response machineries share common pathways that either link or polarize the cellular responses.

Author affiliations

1. INSERM, U848, F-94805 Villejuif, France.
2. Institut Gustave Roussy, F-94805 Villejuif, France.
3. Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Facoltà di Scienze Biotecnologiche, Dipartimento di Farmacologia Sperimentale, 80131 Napoli, Italy.
4. Department of Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel.
5. Université Paris-Sud, F-94805 Villejuif, France.

Correspondence to: Guido Kroemer^1,2,5 Email: kroemer@igr.fr

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