Autophagy

Where the papers sit

30 papers from the last 6 months study autophagy directly · updated from PubMed 11 Oct 2026

• Metabolic Autophagy and Tissue Repair

  Restoring autophagy balance is the recurring goal across metabolic disease, tissue repair, and neurodegeneration. Activation is associated with improved diabetic wounds, fracture healing, cognition, cardiac mitochondrial dynamics, and ALS biomarker discovery. Excessive autophagy contributes to diabetes-related muscle atrophy, while inhibition can radiosensitize mutant-IDH1 glioma. AMPK, mTOR, ROS, mitochondrial dynamics, macrophage signaling, and lipid metabolism recur as control points.

  11 papers · 36.7%

• Therapeutic Autophagy Modulation

  Tumor-directed autophagy modulation is emerging as a way to combine cytotoxicity with microenvironmental control. Inhibition dominates several cancer studies, including ATI-1 disruption of the VCP-UFL1-Beclin1 axis, photodynamic approaches, and pancreatic macrophage reprogramming. Nanoplatforms add multimodal delivery and can address bacteria-driven epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Activation remains context-dependent, appearing in photon-treated thyroid cancer and diabetic islet protection.

  7 papers · 23.3%

• Autophagy-Targeted Disease Therapy

  Autophagy is being manipulated as a disease-treatment lever, but the desired direction depends on pathology. Lung-cancer compounds combine autophagy inhibition or autophagy-mediated apoptosis with ferroptosis and platinum therapy. Injury models instead report protective autophagy induction in kidney and neuronal damage, while cardiovascular and atherosclerotic models emphasize AKT1-STAT3-TLR4 or related signaling. BECN1, p62, ATG3, STAT3, and FOXO1 recur as mechanistic nodes, with validation still largely preclinical.

  7 papers · 23.3%

• Autophagy and Cellular Stress

  Autophagy is being positioned as a stress-buffering switch linking oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress to apoptosis, senescence, DNA damage, and cell-cycle arrest. Astaxanthin and transcranial direct current stimulation are explored as protective interventions, whereas gemfibrozil and LiCl expose stress-associated injury or arrest in disease models. Endometrial senescence and HPV-driven cervical cancer studies likewise connect autophagy with cell survival. The set supports context-dependent regulation rather than a single therapeutic direction.

  5 papers · 16.7%