Table 7.

Protective effect of astragaloside IV on gynaecological diseases

Disease categories	Study object/model	Effect induced by autophagy	Mechanism (targets or pathways)	Ref.
Triple-negative breast cancer	The MDA-MB-231 orthotopic mammary tumour in BALB/c nude mice	(-) Cancer cells' proliferation and migration, (+) autophagy flux	(+) The ATG16L1, ATG9B, ATG4D via SANT; (-) TMEM74 and TNF gene expressions	Li et al[48]
Cervical cancer	A SiHa cell in the nude mice	(-) Cervical cancer invasion, (+) autophagy	(+) Atg12 and (+) cancer cell autophagy via DCP1A and TMSB4X	Xia et al[49]
Vulvar squamous cell carcinoma	The human VSCC cell line SW962	(-) Cell proliferation, (+) apoptosis and autophagy	The TGF-β/Smad signalling pathway; (+) Beclin 1 and LC3 II, (-) p62	Zhao et al[50]

LC: Lung cancer; MDA-MB-231: Human breast cancer cell line; BALB/c: The white mutant laboratory mouse; Atg: Autophagy; VSCC: Vulvar squamous cell carcinoma; SW962: Human vulva phosphorous cancer cell line; SANT: A novel Chinese herbal monomer combination; DCP1A: mRNA-decapping enzyme 1A; TMSB4X: Thymosin beta-4; TNF: Tumour necrosis factor.