Abstract
Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved ‘self-eating’ process that maintains cellular, tissue, and organismal homeostasis. New studies on autophagy, mediated by subsets of autophagy proteins, are emerging in many physiological and pathological processes. Astragalus membranaceus (AM), also named Huangqi, is one of the fundamental herbs in traditional Chinese medicine and its extracts have been proved to possess many biological activities related to autophagy, including anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation, anticancer, anti-photoaging, and improvement of cardiomyocyte function. Evidence suggests that AM extracts can have therapeutic potential in autophagy dysregulation-associated diseases because of their biological positive effects. Here we will review the literature concerning the effects of AM extracts on autophagy dysregulation-associated diseases.
Highlights
Autophagy is a process mediated by subsets of evolutionarily conserved genes from yeast to higher eukaryotes [1]
Mitochondrial dysfunction and the morphological changes induced by oxidative stress during this process could be ameliorated by Astragalus polysaccharides (APS). Autophagy during this process was inhibited and was independent of AMPK, a vital regulator of the energy response and activator of mTOR [45]. They found that, in a chronic kidney disease-related muscle wasting model, which was closely associated with oxidative stress [46], APS could improve muscle wasting through Akt/mTOR, ubiquitin proteasome and autophagy signaling, and SLC38A2 might be involved in disease progression due to the inhibitory effect of siRNA [47]
A recent study demonstrated that DOX could induce heart failure by disturbing cardiomyocyte autophagic flux, which led to excessive accumulation of autophagosomes and autophagic cell death, while APS could restore impaired cardiomyocyte autophagic flux to normal level and improve cardiomyocyte function through the regulation of the AMPK/mTOR pathway [53]
Summary
Autophagy is a process mediated by subsets of evolutionarily conserved genes from yeast to higher eukaryotes [1]. Autophagy responds to various environmental cues and maintains cellular, tissue, and whole-body homeostasis through regenerating metabolic precursors and clearing subcellular debris [2]. Astragalus membranaceus (AM), as a fundamentally representative herb of traditional Chinese medicine, contains numerous components and has a wide range of biological activities [3,4,5]. In addition to the expanding roles of autophagy in human health and diseases, recent developments have begun to reveal the close interaction between autophagy and AM-mediated biological activities in human diseases. We aim to address the expanding mechanisms involved in the interaction between the two fields
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