Exploring New Strategies to Monitor Autophagy and Related Cell Death Pathways Using Raman Spectroscopy

Macroautophagy, (heretofore referred to as autophagy) is thought to play a pivotal role in tumorigenesis and tumor cell survival. Autophagy is a self-degradative cellular process that recycles intracellular components such as proteins and lipids, and may also be used to clear extraneous or damaged organelles. Through this process, metabolites such as amino acids or fatty acids can be liberated for use by the cell. While basal levels of autophagy are required for cellular homeostasis, autophagy is most commonly induced in response to metabolic stressors. In this way, autophagy may be utilized by cancer cells to adapt to the tumor microenvironment, which may be hypoxic and/or nutrient low, or as an adaptive response to cytotoxic insult by chemotherapeutic agents. Conversely, excessive or dysregulated autophagy may be part of the cell death pathway continuum, having been previously implicated in both apoptosis and necrosis [1, 2]. In addition, down regulation of tumor autophagy may promote immune evasion by disrupting the antigen-processing pathway [3, 4]. Therefore, further investigation of autophagy’s role in tumor cell survival and death is warranted.

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