Background: Autophagy is a metabolic response of cells to chemical and physical factors, such as nutrition or growth factor deprivation, proinflammatory state, hypoxia, accumulation of reactive oxygen species, presence of infectious agents, and DNA damage. Autophagy maintains the homeostasis of intracellular metabolism mainly by degrading cellular organelles and critical proteins. In a sense, autophagy protects cells from death. Radiotherapy is a powerful tool used to control tumor growth, and it can induce autophagy. The relationship between radiotherapy and autophagy is worthy of further investigation.
Methods: We searched various electronic databases including PubMed for peer-reviewed English-language articles and selected articles on the mechanism of autophagy, its role in cancer development and cancer treatment, and the relationship between the effect of radiation therapy and autophagy intensity.
Results: This review has recently shown that the sensitivity of tumor cells to radiation therapy can be increased by regulating autophagy.
Conclusion: The effects of autophagy vary, and autophagy provides various ways of enhancing radiosensitivity, including inhibition of autophagy, increase in autophagy, and altering the outcome of autophagy.
Keywords: Autophagy; Induction; Inhibition; Radiosensitivity.