Autophagy and its role in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Autophagy, an important homeostatic cellular recycling mechanism, is now emerging as a crucial player in response to metabolic and therapeutic stresses, which attempts to maintain/restore metabolic homeostasis through the catabolic lysis of excessive or unnecessary proteins and injured or aged organelles. Autophagy is particularly active during metabolic stress. In the cancer cell it fulfils a dual role, having tumor-promoting and tumor-suppressing properties. Functional autophagy prevents necrosis and inflammation, which can lead to genetic instability. On the other hand, autophagy might be important for tumor progression by providing energy through its recycling mechanism during unfavorable metabolic circumstances. Recently, several studies have shown that autophagy play an important role in treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. This review will summarize the signal transduction pathway of autophagy, its relationship with tumor and its role in the nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment in order to give a comprehensive understanding of the function of autophagy.