Role of Autophagy on inducing endocrine resistance in patient with ER-positive breast cancer

Background and aim: Autophagy is a process typically found in cells exposed to different stresses, essential for antiestrogen resistance, pivotal for metastatic development and accompanied by resistance to chemotherapy medications. The survival rate of breast cancer cells has been reportedly promoted by inducing the autophagy pathway using different therapeutic strategies, including Fulvestrant and tamoxifen drugs in ER-positive breast cancer cells.Materials and methods: The study search strategy was on PubMed database in English using the main keywords, including ER-positive breast, autophagy, autophagy inhibitors, tamoxifen and endocrine resistance.Results: According to statistical analysis, the autophagy plays an important role to develop endocrine resistance, as well as the Fulvestrant and the tamoxifen could trigger the autophagy pathway in the ER-positive breast cancer cells. Moreover, the autophagy has been reported to be a key mechanism in tamoxifen resistance because it affects the process of pathologic disorders through unbalancing cell death and survival in response to tamoxifen. The autophagy has supportive effect in the survival or is an alternative for apoptosis. Conclusion: The autophagy, in spite of duality, is vital to induce the endocrine resistance in the ER-positive breast cancer cells, as it can be claimed that the autophagy inhibitors coupled with the chemotherapy agents might be promising approach to treat the breast cancer.

Role of Autophagy on inducing endocrine resistance in patient with ER-positive breast cancer Keywords:

ER-positive breast , autophagy , autophagy inhibitors , tamoxifen , endocrine resistance.