[Dual role of autophagy in chronic myeloid leukemia]

Autophagy is a lysosome-mediated self-degradation process that mediates degradation and recycling of all major components of eukaryotic cells to maintain intracellular homeostasis. Autophagy is associated with leukemo-genesis, treatment, drug-resistance and recurrence of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Autophagy is a double-edged sword which has dual characteristics to promote survival and death of CML cells. Thus exploring different roles of autophagy under different conditions, finding out different autophagy pathways and combination with autophagy inducer or inhibitor of autophagy is of great importance to improve therapeutic effect, overcome drug-resistance and recurrence and finally come to a cure. This article makes a summary on the dual role of autophagy in CML.