Fig. 7.

Small-molecule compounds directly target autophagy-related proteins or autophagic process in cancer. Several autophagy-targeted small molecular compounds have been discovered in cancer therapy. mTOR inhibitors and ULK1 activator can promote autophagy induction, the ATG4 activator can promote vesicle elongation and completion to up-regulate autophagy. ULK1 inhibitors inhibit autophagy induction, the Vps34 inhibitors hinder vesicle nucleation, the ATG4 inhibitors inhibit vesicle elongation and completion, and lysosome-targeted inhibitors inhibit the normal function of lysosomes to inhibit autophagy. The compounds in green frame represent autophagy activators and in red represent autophagy inhibitors