Regulatory insights into progression of cancer and Alzheimer's disorder from autophagy perspective.

Autophagy is a cellular physiological process which degrades the cytoplasmic debris and also helps in maintaining the cellular homeostasis. Due to gene mutations regulating this, the susceptibility to Cancer and Alzheimer's Disease increases. The mechanism of impairment in the expression of the genes involved in autophagy is context dependent. Autophagy initially acts as a cytoprotective process, but when the disease progresses, it gets into cytotoxic effect. Hence, it is very difficult to design a therapeutic strategy as the switching point where the cytoprotective nature changes into a cytotoxic one is difficult to figure out. The present insight into the interplay of regulatory events and factors responsible for the progression of cancer and Alzheimer's disorder involved with autophagy may pave a way for more promising strategy for therapies.