Autophagy is an evolutionarily-conserved catabolic process which furthers cell survival, especially in times of nutritional stress. Whilst being by itself a pro-survival mechanism, it has many areas of overlap with apoptosis. Autophagic cell death is recognised as a subset of programmed cell death, with features more typical of autophagy rather than classical apoptosis. The mechanisms preventing autophagy from unravelling into autophagic cell death are still the subject of much controversy. We discuss the current understanding of these mechanisms, including recent research regarding the role of death-associated protein-1 in autophagy and apoptosis.
Keywords: Autophagy; apoptosis; breast cancer; carcinogenesis; death-associated protein 1; macroautophagy; oncogenesis; review.