Nanomaterials-Mediated Autophagy-Based Cancer Treatment

With the rapid development of nanotechnology, nanomaterials have been widely used in the field of cancer treatment. It is well known that autophagy, as a process that maintains cellular homeostasis, plays a dual role in promoting survival and death in cancer development. The level of autophagy in cancer cells is significantly higher than that in normal cells, resulting in various treatment strategies being ineffective. Synergistic treatment of cancer by perturbing autophagy has become a viable option, but traditional autophagy perturbing agents such as chloroquine may lead to certain other side effects. In addition, it has been demonstrated that nanomaterials can be used as a novel autophagy perturber, but the mechanism by which nanomaterials interfere with autophagy needs to be more deeply understood. This review provides an overview of the dual relationship between cancer and autophagy, and highlights the mechanisms by which various nanomaterials induce cancer cell death or apoptosis by perturbing autophagy, or enhance the sensitivity of cancer cells to conventional cancer therapy by perturbing autophagy, and the mechanisms by which they modulate autophagy.