Over Fifty Years of Life, Death, and Cannibalism: A Historical Recollection of Apoptosis and Autophagy
Research in biomedical sciences has changed dramatically over the past fifty years. There is no doubt that the discovery of apoptosis and autophagy as two highly synchronized and regulated mechanisms in cellular homeostasis are among the most important discoveries in these decades. Along with the advancement in molecular biology, identifying the genetic players in apoptosis and autophagy has shed light on our understanding of their function in physiological and pathological conditions. In this review, we first describe the history of key discoveries in apoptosis with a molecular insight and continue with apoptosis pathways and their regulation. We touch upon the role of apoptosis in human health and its malfunction in several diseases. We discuss the path to the morphological and molecular discovery of autophagy. Moreover, we dive deep into the precise regulation of autophagy and recent findings from basic research to clinical applications of autophagy modulation in human health and illnesses and the available therapies for many diseases caused by impaired autophagy. We conclude with the exciting crosstalk between apoptosis and autophagy, from the early discoveries to recent findings.
Other Information
Published in: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms222212466
Funding
Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.
History
Language
- English
Publisher
MDPIPublication Year
- 2021
License statement
This Item is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Institution affiliated with
- Hamad Bin Khalifa University
- College of Health and Life Sciences - HBKU