Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announced the continuation of our Special Issue “Apoptosis and Autophagy: The Double Edge in Cancer Development and Progression and in Other Human Diseases”, with a third edition.

The mechanisms of cell death have a pivotal role in the determination of the fate of normal and cancer cells in a multicellular organism. The disruption of these mechanisms is at the core of the development of inflammatory and tumor diseases, and knowledge of the molecular components altered in specific illnesses can be useful in the design of new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of human cancers as well as of inflammatory diseases. Two of the most known cell death mechanisms are apoptosis and autophagy, which are differently-involved in the regulation of tumor cell proliferation and metastasization. These mechanisms are often opposite, and autophagy is described as an escape mechanism from apoptotic occurrence, representing a protective effect of tumor cells to anti-cancer agents or hypoxic conditions, both of which are deleterious for cancer progression. On the other hand, some anti-cancer agents can induce autophagy during the repression of tumor proliferation. In this way, autophagy can become a marker of cancer response to treatment. The existence of specific tumor conditions can determine the functional role of autophagy in cancer tissues. The interaction between autophagy and apoptosis occurs through the cross-talk of the respective molecular mechanisms that are able to influence each other in a tunable way. A role for apoptosis and autophagy in the regulation of normal tissue development and differentiation is also emerging. Therefore, apoptosis and autophagy also regulate the physiological mechanisms of several organs (i.e., liver and ovary), and are involved in the occurrence of several diseases, based on either a development defect or a chronic inflammatory status. The intervention on the programmed cell death with specific agents can be a new strategy for the treatment of these kinds of diseases.

This Issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences will focus on the recent advances in “Apoptosis and Autophagy: The Double Edge in Cancer Development and Progression and in Other Human Diseases 3.0”, including new insights into the molecular mechanisms of apoptosis, autophagy, and other programmed cell death mechanisms (i.e., senescence), and their correlations with the control of cancer growth, metastasization, tissue development, and inflammation. Moreover, emerging data on the natural or synthetic modulators of apoptosis and autophagy in relation to new therapeutic strategies are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Michele Caraglia
Prof. Dr. Maria Luisa Balestrieri
Dr. Nunzia D’Onofrio
Dr. Amalia Luce
Guest Editors

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• apoptosis
• autophagy
• cancer
• miRNA
• long non-coding RNAs
• senescence
• inflammation
• therapeutics

• Apoptosis and Autophagy: The Double Edge in Cancer Development and Progression and in Other Human Diseases in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (20 articles)
• Apoptosis and Autophagy: The Double Edge in Cancer Development and Progression and in Other Human Diseases 2.0 in International Journal of Molecular Sciences (11 articles)