Autophagy And Telomerase In Cancer Therapy - The Breast Cancer Case

Despite the medicine development, cancer remains a serious epidemiological problem. Nowadays, a combined therapy seems to constitute one of the most promising approaches in oncology. A strategy based on simultaneous modulation of different molecular targets e.g. chemotherapeutics combined with autophagy modulators is particularly expected. Autophagy is a type II of programmed cell death, playing an important role in maintaining intracellular homeostasis. Because of the dual nature of autophagy in the context of cancer, the development of strategies modulating this process remains a subject of intensive studies. It is suspected that the key telomerase subunit i.e. hTERT may be one of the factors affecting the activity of autophagy due to its contribution to mTOR-related pathway, one of the two main autophagy regulators. It seems that drugs affecting telomerase activity might be used in a combination with autophagy modulators to modulate the metabolism of cancer cells and eliminate them. However, this approach requires further intensive studies.