Cellular Autophagy and Primary Liver Cancer Research Progress

The concept of cellular autophagy is that in eukaryotic cells, there are two significant organelles involved in cellular degradation, namely, lysosomes and proteasomes, whereas proteasomes usually recognize and degrade only ubiquitinated substrates in a highly selective manner, lysosomal degradation has a more complex pattern. Autophagy is a “self-feeding” phenomenon that maintains cellular homeostasis by targeting damaged organelles and misfolded proteins to the lysosome for degradation, i.e., extracellular substances and plasma membrane proteins can be delivered to the lysosome for degradation by endocytosis. In contrast, cytoplasmic components and organelles can be delivered to the lysosome for degradation by autophagy. Therefore, autophagy is an intracellular catabolic process that targets damaged and excess cellular proteins, organelles, and other cytoplasmic components and plays an essential role in maintaining cellular homeostasis and activities.