Exploiting Intrinsic Nanoparticle Toxicity: The Pros and Cons of Nanoparticle-Induced Autophagy in Biomedical Research

The variety of lipids and potential incorporation of proteins or other lipophilic compounds allows easy fine tuning of the chemical makeup of liposomes and their surface chemistry, which enables further modification of these vectors. NPs have been found to be capable of modulating autophagy, and it has been put forward that autophagy induction may be a potential common cellular reaction toward NMs as an attempt to eliminate the foreign material. Therefore, the indirect effect of autophagy modulation on potentially protecting the cells from NMinduced damage is an interesting research topic that is in full development. On the other hand, NMs able to modulate autophagy have been proposed as potential agents against autophagy-related diseases. Intriguingly, several studies have shown that certain NPs are even able to selectively overstimulate autophagy in cancerous cells, leading to cell death without significantly affecting the level of autophagy in noncancerous cells.