The ancient Greek word "φαγos" (phagos) stands for "eater" or "glutton" and "φαγεĩν" (phagein) means "to eat". Autophagy, also referred to as macroautophagy, was first discovered over 40 years ago as a process of cellular self-digestion, or "self-eating", and was initially thought to be a nonspecific degradation process. It is now clear that autophagy is highly regulated, serving to remove damaged proteins and organelles from the cell as part of certain cellular stress responses. As such autophagy contributes to numerous physiological and pathophysiological processes [1]. Moreover, autophagy has recently emerged as a key regulating process in cancer formation, with evidence for either pro-or anti-tumorigenic
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