Research Progress on Autophagy Regulation by Active Ingredients of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the Treatment of Acute Lung Injury

Abstract

Autophagy is a highly conserved process that maintains cell stability in eukaryotes, participates in the turnover of intracellular substances to maintain cell function, helps to resist pathogen invasion, and improves cell tolerance to environmental changes. Autophagy has been observed in many diseases, and the symptoms of these diseases are significantly improved by regulating autophagy. Autophagy is also involved in the development of lung diseases. Studies have shown that autophagy may play a beneficial or harmful role in acute lung injury (ALI), and ALI has been treated with traditional Chinese medicine designed to promote or inhibit autophagy. In this paper, the molecular mechanism and common pathways regulating autophagy and the relationship between autophagy and ALI are introduced, and the active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine that improve ALI symptoms by regulating autophagy are summarized.

Keywords:

• autophagy
• inflammation
• oxidative stress
• apoptosis

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest related to this work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81704028) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2020M670045ZX).