Autophagy Genes and Otitis Media Outcomes

Yong Jun Kim; Hwa Sung Rim; Jeong Hee Kim; Sung Soo Kim; Joon Hyung Yeo; Seung Geun Yeo

doi:10.3390/clinpract14010023

Autophagy Genes and Otitis Media Outcomes

Clin Pract. 2024 Feb 6;14(1):293-304. doi: 10.3390/clinpract14010023.

Authors

Yong Jun Kim¹, Hwa Sung Rim², Jeong Hee Kim¹, Sung Soo Kim³, Joon Hyung Yeo⁴, Seung Geun Yeo²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University Medical Center, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Republic of Korea.
⁴ Public Health Center, Danyang-gun, Seoul 27010, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

Otitis media (OM) is a common cause of hearing loss in children that requires corrective surgery. Various studies have investigated the pathomechanisms and treatment of OM. Autophagy, an essential cellular recycling and elimination mechanism implicated in various diseases, is known to play an important role in the pathogenesis of OM. Here, we conducted a literature review on autophagy in OM, highlighting the relationship between expression patterns of autophagy-related factors and pathophysiological and clinical aspects of OM. We summarized the existing research results on the expression of autophagy-related factors in acute OM (AOM), OM with effusion (OME), chronic OM (COM) with cholesteatoma, and COM without cholesteatoma (CholeOM) in animals and humans. Autophagy-related factors are expressed in the middle ear mucosa or fluid of AOM, effusion of OME, granulation tissue of COM, and cholesteatoma of CholeOM. Among ATGs and other autophagy-related factors, the most extensively studied in relation to the pathogenesis of OM are mTOR, LC3II/I, PI3K, Beclin-1, FLIP, Akt, and Rubicon. Expression of autophagy-related factors is associated with AOM, OME, COM, and CholeOM. Inadequate expression of these factors or a decrease/increase in autophagy responses can result in OM, underscoring the critical role of ATGs and related factors in the pathogenesis of OM.

Keywords: autophagy; autophagy-related genes; cholesteatoma; effusion; granulation tissue; otitis media.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (NRF 2018R1A6A1A03025124) (NRF 2022R1A2C1091779). This research was supported by a grant provided by the Korea Health Technology R&D Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (grant number: HV22C0233). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report.