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AUTOPHAGY

Crisis management by autophagy

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology volume 26, pages 151–152 (2019)Cite this article

Autophagy is a highly contextual modulator of tumorigenesis. A new study shows that autophagy can serve as a tumor suppressor to mediate cell death at replicative crisis.

Macroautophagy (called simply ‘autophagy’ here) has been linked to cancer, but how it affects cancer development is highly context dependent. Autophagy plays a key role in energy homeostasis and the recycling of damaged macromolecules, collectively contributing to cellular fitness1. Thus, autophagy typically serves as a pro-survival factor and hence can be pro-tumorigenic. On that basis, autophagy is considered a target for cancer therapy, often in combination with other genotoxic drugs, particularly in advanced-stage cancers. However, there is genetic evidence that autophagy can also be tumor suppressive, but the molecular mechanism behind this is not well understood1. A new report by Nassour et al. now provides evidence that autophagy is responsible for the cell death that occurs at replicative crisis, which is recognized as a ‘backup’ tumor-suppressor mechanism for replicative senescence2.

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Fig. 1: Two-stage immortalization and autophagy.

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  1. Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge, Li Ka Shing Centre, Cambridge, UK

    Masashi Narita

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  1. Masashi Narita
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Correspondence to Masashi Narita.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Narita, M. Crisis management by autophagy. Nat Struct Mol Biol 26, 151–152 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-019-0195-0

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