Figure 7.

Rationale for stimulating autophagy in cancer chemotherapy. The supply of nutrients is different in normal tissue cells (top) and cancer cells (bottom). Cancer cells can utilize various means to maintain stable metabolism and maintain homeostasis, including upregulation of autophagy. Upon exposure to autophagy-stimulating molecules such as ABC2946490, cancer cells likely further upregulate this pathway, leading to a high level of self-digestion in tumor cells. Empty spaces in these cells represent autophagic vacuoles where programed and non-programed lysosomal digestion of cytoplasmic constituents takes place. The consequence of “over-digestion” will be non-apoptotic cell death (bottom right).