Plants constantly face tremendous survival pressure from both external pathogen invasion and internal high-frequency cell division increasing the odds for malignancy. However, these commonly interlinked threats remain relatively insignificant compared with the animal system. Phytochemicals, generated from plants endogenously, have been used for diseases treatment by animals and humans since the prehistorical era. Until late modern, the isolation and purification of these chemicals for the specific targeting of diseases have not been studied. Despite the extensive research, the understanding of many detailed mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects remains incomplete.
Autophagy is a series of highly regulated biological processes to deliver cytoplasmic materials to lysosomes for degradation. The understanding of the involvements of autophagy in both infection and malignancies, whether as a first-line defense in the innate immunity or hijacked by malignancies for treatment resistance, has brought revolutionary changes in the establishments of therapeutic strategies. Series of phytochemicals have been proven to target autophagy to exert myriads of biological effects, many have shown therapeutic effects against infection and malignancies. Yet, the general picture of the application of phytochemicals, adopted mechanism, the comparison of effects and toxicities, in the treatment via autophagy awaits depiction.
The goal of this Research Topic would be to address the latest advances in:
• The understanding of autophagy in infectious diseases and malignancies: response to bacterial and viral infection, the role in innate and adaptive immunity, cytokine signaling and pattern recognition receptors and inflammation regulation, the effect on cancer cell growth, microenvironment, and drug and irradiation resistance.
• The action modes of different phytochemicals in the pathological processes involving autophagy. Including related molecular targets and pathways, metabolisms and pharmacodynamics, and evaluations with bioinformatics.
• The progress in the phytochemical selection methods, chemical production, and purification techniques, drug delivery vectors development, pre-clinical and clinical assessments of tolerance, toxicity and therapeutic efficacy, infection control, and malignancy survival benefits.
In addition, for manuscripts dealing with plant extracts or other natural substances/compounds, the composition and the stability of the study material must be described in sufficient detail. In particular, for extracts, chromatograms with the characterization of the dominating compound(s) are requested. The level of purity must be proven and included.
Plants constantly face tremendous survival pressure from both external pathogen invasion and internal high-frequency cell division increasing the odds for malignancy. However, these commonly interlinked threats remain relatively insignificant compared with the animal system. Phytochemicals, generated from plants endogenously, have been used for diseases treatment by animals and humans since the prehistorical era. Until late modern, the isolation and purification of these chemicals for the specific targeting of diseases have not been studied. Despite the extensive research, the understanding of many detailed mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effects remains incomplete.
Autophagy is a series of highly regulated biological processes to deliver cytoplasmic materials to lysosomes for degradation. The understanding of the involvements of autophagy in both infection and malignancies, whether as a first-line defense in the innate immunity or hijacked by malignancies for treatment resistance, has brought revolutionary changes in the establishments of therapeutic strategies. Series of phytochemicals have been proven to target autophagy to exert myriads of biological effects, many have shown therapeutic effects against infection and malignancies. Yet, the general picture of the application of phytochemicals, adopted mechanism, the comparison of effects and toxicities, in the treatment via autophagy awaits depiction.
The goal of this Research Topic would be to address the latest advances in:
• The understanding of autophagy in infectious diseases and malignancies: response to bacterial and viral infection, the role in innate and adaptive immunity, cytokine signaling and pattern recognition receptors and inflammation regulation, the effect on cancer cell growth, microenvironment, and drug and irradiation resistance.
• The action modes of different phytochemicals in the pathological processes involving autophagy. Including related molecular targets and pathways, metabolisms and pharmacodynamics, and evaluations with bioinformatics.
• The progress in the phytochemical selection methods, chemical production, and purification techniques, drug delivery vectors development, pre-clinical and clinical assessments of tolerance, toxicity and therapeutic efficacy, infection control, and malignancy survival benefits.
In addition, for manuscripts dealing with plant extracts or other natural substances/compounds, the composition and the stability of the study material must be described in sufficient detail. In particular, for extracts, chromatograms with the characterization of the dominating compound(s) are requested. The level of purity must be proven and included.
