Background:
autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process of turnover of intracellular materials in eukaryotes. This process is a cellular catabolic pathway involving protein degradation, organelle renewal and non-selective breakdown of cytoplasmic components, and is strictly regulated. Some damaged proteins or organelles are wrapped in bilayer membrane autophagy vesicles and sent to lysosomes (animals) or vacuoles (yeast and plants) for degradation and recycling. It is a dynamic cell circulation system to maintain the stability of the material and energy in the cell and keep the cell normal under different physiological states. mTOR kinase is a key molecule in autophagy induction. Activation of mTOR (Akt and MAPK signal transduction) can inhibit autophagy, or inhibition of mTOR (AMPK and p53 signal transduction) can promote autophagy. The Atg gene controls the formation of autophagosomes through the Atg12-Atg5 and LC3-II (Atg8-II) complexes. Some pro-apoptotic signals, such as TNF, TRAIL and FADD, can simultaneously