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World J Gastroenterol. Nov 7, 2018; 24(41): 4643-4651
Published online Nov 7, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i41.4643
Role of autophagy in tumorigenesis, metastasis, targeted therapy and drug resistance of hepatocellular carcinoma
Fang Huang, Bing-Rong Wang, Yi-Gang Wang
Fang Huang, Yi-Gang Wang, Department of Pathology, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, People’s Hospital of Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou 310014, Zhejiang Province, China
Bing-Rong Wang, Yi-Gang Wang, Xinyuan Institute of Medicine and Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Huang F, Wang BR and Wang YG performed the literature review and drafted the manuscript; Huang F and Wang YG revised the manuscript; All the authors read and approved the final version to be published.
Supported by Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81803069; Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China, No. LY18C070002 and No. LY16H160056;and 521 Talent Project of Zhejiang Sci-Tech University.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest related to this study.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yi-Gang Wang, PhD, Associate Professor, Xinyuan Institute of Medicine and Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, No. 5, Road 2, Xiasha District, Hangzhou 310018, Zhejiang Province, China. wangyigang43@163.com
Telephone: +86-571-86843187 Fax: +86-571-86843185
Received: July 5, 2018
Peer-review started: July 5, 2018
First decision: August 25, 2018
Revised: September 4, 2018
Accepted: October 5, 2018
Article in press: October 5, 2018
Published online: November 7, 2018
Processing time: 125 Days and 10.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Liver cancer seriously threatens human health, due to its high recurrence rate and poor prognosis. Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of primary liver cancer. Autophagy plays a dual role in cancer. Basic autophagy exerts a tumor suppression function by maintaining genomic stability in normal cells. When cancer occurs, activated autophagy benefits cancer cell survival and promotes cancer development. However, the mechanism and function of autophagy in human cancers, especially liver cancer, have not been clarified. We summarize the physiological function of autophagy and its role in tumorigenesis, metastasis, targeted therapy and drug-resistance in hepatocellular carcinoma.