The progression of HMGB1-induced autophagy in cancer biology

• Main Authors: Xu T, Jiang L, Wang Z
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dove Medical Press 2018-12-01
• Series: OncoTargets and Therapy
• Subjects: HMGB1; autophagy; cancer; non-coding RNA; drug-resistance
• Online Access: https://www.dovepress.com/the-progression-of-hmgb1-induced-autophagy-in-cancer-biology-peer-reviewed-article-OTT

Tianwei Xu,* Lihua Jiang,* Zhaoxia Wang Department of Oncology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Autophagy is an important process of cellular degradation and has been proven to contribute to tumorigenesis. High-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is an abundant nonhistone protein that has been widely reported to play a central role in the induction of autophagy. In nucleus, HMGB1 upregulates the expression of HSP27 to induce autophagy. In cytoplasm, the Beclin-1/PI3K-III complex can be activated by HMGB1 to promote autophagy. Extracellular HMGB1 binds to the receptor for advanced glycation end products to induce autophagy. Recent studies have shown that HMGB1-induced autophagy exerts multiple functions in various cancers like proliferation. Moreover, inhibition of HMGB1-induced autophagy can reverse chemoresistance, which is regulated by noncoding RNAs such as microRNAs and lncRNAs. Here, we provide a brief introduction to HMGB1 and HMGB1-induced autophagy in cancer. We also discuss the challenges associated with performing further investigations on this issue. HMGB1-induced autophagy exerts significant functions in cancer and has potential utility for new strategy to reverse drug resistance. Keywords: HMGB1, autophagy, cancer, noncoding RNA, drug resistance