Crosstalk between autophagy and apoptosis: Mechanisms and therapeutic implications.

The cellular recycling process of macroautophagy, which is the mechanism by which cellular material is delivered to lysosomes via double membraned vesicles called autophagosomes, is intimately connected to programmed cell death pathways, especially apoptosis. In this article, I discuss some underlying mechanisms and their implications for improving cancer therapy and propose that the approaches that have been taken to understand the autophagy-apoptosis connection to enhance cancer drug action can serve as a model for the kinds of information that should be developed to understand how autophagy controls other biological processes as well.