The Effects of Propofol on Autophagy.

Propofol is a widely used intravenous agent for the induction and maintenance of anesthesia. An increasing number of studies have shown that propofol modulates autophagy, which is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process that maintains cellular homeostasis by degrading long-lived proteins and damaged cellular proteins or organelles. Extensive studies have been performed to better understand the regulation of autophagy by propofol, the majority of which have demonstrated that the effects of propofol on autophagy are beneficial to organs and tissues. In this review, we retrospectively analyzed studies to assess the effects of propofol on autophagy in different diseases and evaluated the underlying mechanisms.