Role of autophagy in rejection after solid organ transplantation: A systematic review of the literature

Table 1 Role of autophagy in different immune cells in organ transplantation rejection

Cell type	Transplant model	Autophagy level in transplantation	Autophagy manipulating	Autophagy level after manipulating	Functional outcome after autophagy manipulating	Ref.
T cell	Heart, mice	N/A	BECN1 knock down	N/A	Increased alloreactivity of T cells; Enhanced graft rejection	Verghese et al[37], 2014
	Liver, rats	↑	3-methyladenine	↓	Inhibited survival and function of T cells; prolonged allograft survival	Chen et al[38], 2019
	Skin and heart, mice	N/A	Chloroquine	N/A	Reduced infiltration of T cells; prolonged allograft survival	Cui et al[40], 2020
	Liver, rats	↑	JNK inhibitor SP600125	↓	Inhibited survival and function of T cells; prolonged allograft survival	Wang et al[39], 2024
B cell	Heart, mice	↑	ATG7 knock down	↓	Inhibited secondary alloantibody responses, decreased alloreactive memory B cells	Fribourg et al[45], 2018
DC	Skin, mice	N/A	Sorafenib	↑	Inhibited viability, maturation of dendritic cells; prolonged allograft survival	Lin et al[58], 2013
Treg	Heart, mice	↓	The miR-146a knock down	↑	Enhanced inhibitory effects of Tregs; prolonged allograft survival	Lu et al[65], 2021
	Heart, mice	↓	lncRNA PVT1 overexpression	↑	Enhanced inhibitory effects of Tregs; prolonged allograft survival	Lu et al[66], 2021
MDSC	Heart, mice	N/A	mTOR conditional knockout	↑	Promoted differentiation, immunosuppressive function of MDSCs; prolonged allograft survival	Li et al[68], 2021
Macrophage	Corneal, rats	N/A	Kaempferol	↑	Reduced M1 polarization, inflammasome activation of macrophage; alleviated graft rejection	Tian et al[73], 2021

DC: Dendritic cell; MDSC: Myeloid-derived suppressor cell; mTOR: Mammalian target of rapamycin; ATG: Autophagy-related gene; Treg: Regulatory T cell; miR: MicroRNA; lncRNA: Long noncoding RNA; BECN1: Beclin 1; JNK: Jun N-terminal kinases; PVT1: Plasmacytoma variant translocation 1; MDSCs: Myeloid-derived suppressor cells; N/A: Not applicable.