Modulation of Autophagy in Cancer Cells by Dietary Polyphenols

Abstract

The role of autophagy is to degrade damaged or unnecessary cellular structures. Both in vivo and in vitro studies suggest a dual role of autophagy in cancer—it may promote the development of neoplasms, but it may also play a tumor protective function. The mechanism of autophagy depends on the genetic context, tumor stage and type, tumor microenvironment, or clinical therapy used. Autophagy also plays an important role in cell death as well as in the induction of chemoresistance of cancer cells. The following review describes the extensive autophagic cell death in relation to dietary polyphenols and cancer disease. The review documents increasing use of polyphenolic compounds in cancer prevention, or as agents supporting oncological treatment. Polyphenols are organic chemicals that exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic, and immunomodulating properties, and can also initiate the process of apoptosis. In addition, polyphenols reduce oxidative stress and protect against reactive oxygen species. This review presents in vitro and in vivo studies in animal models with the use of polyphenolic compounds such as epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), oleuropein, punicalgin, apigenin, resveratrol, pterostilbene, or curcumin and their importance in the modulation of autophagy-induced death of cancer cells.

lncRNA MALAT1 participates in metformin inhibiting the proliferation of breast cancer cell

“…Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process for maintaining cellular homeostasis through the degradation or recycling of damaged long‐lived proteins, protein aggregates and organelles. Upon autophagy induction, a family of autophagy‐related (ATG) proteins are recruited to form a series of membrane structures, including autophagosomes 27 . Results of present study showed that the expression of ATG3, ATG5 and LC3‐II was increased in the metformin‐treated cells, indicating that autophagy was involved with the anti‐tumour effect of metformin.…”

“…Results of present study showed that the expression of ATG3, ATG5 and LC3‐II was increased in the metformin‐treated cells, indicating that autophagy was involved with the anti‐tumour effect of metformin. However, numerous studies have demonstrated that autophagy executes a dual duty in cancer 27,28 . Autophagy was initially thought to play a tumour‐suppression role to limit the neoplastic process by eliminating abnormal proteins and/or organelles.…”

Cogent role of flavonoids as key orchestrators of chemoprevention of hepatocellular carcinoma: A review

“…Flavonoids are natural polyphenols found in various types of dietary sources such as fruits, herbs, and vegetables. Resveratrol is a naturally occurring flavonoid that has fascinated attention due to its wide range of pharmacological activities (Musial et al, 2021). Luteolin induced autophagy and apoptosis in the hepatocellular carcinoma cell line such as SMMC‐7721 and Hep3B cells (Cao et al., 2017).…”

Recent Advances in Phenolic Metabolites and Skin Cancer

“…It is also pointed out that the autophagy depends on the genetic context, tumor type, tumor stage, microenvironment and the treatment applied. Numerous in vitro studies indicated that resveratrol is able to induce autophagy, inhibiting the Akt/mTOR pathway in B16 melanoma cells [ 107 ]. It was also shown that resveratrol suppressed the growth of B16F10 murine melanoma cells and A375 human cells by promoting autophagy and inhibiting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway [ 99 ].…”