Targeting autophagy for breast cancer prevention and therapy: From classical methods to phytochemical agents

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous illness comprising diverse biological subtypes, each of which differs in incidence, response to therapies, and prognosis. Despite the presence of novel medications that effectively target vital cellular signaling pathways and their application in clinical practice, breast cancer can still develop resistance to therapies by various mechanisms. Autophagy is a conserved catabolic cellular process that maintains intracellular metabolic homeostasis by removing dysfunctional or unnecessary cellular materials to recycle cytosolic components. This process serves as an adaptive survival response to diverse stress stimuli, thereby contributing to tumor initiation, progression, and drug resistance, leading to restriction of the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic treatments. Regarding this potential role of autophagy, molecular regulation and signal transduction of this process represent an attractive approach to combat cancer development and drug resistance. Among various therapeutic agents, bioactive plant-derived compounds have received significant interest as promising anticancer drugs. A plethora of evidence has shown that phytochemicals with the capacity to modulate autophagy may have the potential to be used as inhibitors of breast cancer growth. In this review, we describe recent findings on autophagy targeting along with conventional methods for breast cancer therapy. Subsequently, we introduce phytochemical compounds with the capacity to modulate autophagy for breast cancer treatment.