Theranostics 2023; 13(2):736-766. doi:10.7150/thno.79876 This issue Cite
Review
1. Sichuan Engineering Research Center for Biomimetic Synthesis of Natural Drugs, School of Life Science and Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
2. The Center of Gastrointestinal and Minimally Invasive Surgery, Department of General Surgery, The Third People's Hospital of Chengdu, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
3. Medical Research Center, The Third People's Hospital of Chengdu, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
Cellular mitophagy means that cells selectively wrap and degrade damaged mitochondria through an autophagy mechanism, thus maintaining mitochondria and intracellular homeostasis. In recent years, mitophagy has received increasing attention as a research hotspot related to the pathogenesis of clinical diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, metabolic diseases, and so on. It has been found that the regulation of mitophagy may become a new direction for the treatment of some diseases. In addition, numerous small molecule modulators of mitophagy have also been reported, which provides new opportunities to comprehend the procedure and potential of therapeutic development. Taken together, in this review, we summarize current understanding of the mechanism of mitophagy, discuss the roles of mitophagy and its relationship with diseases, introduce the existing small-molecule pharmacological modulators of mitophagy and further highlight the significance of their development.
Keywords: Mitophagy, Mechanism, Diseases, Small molecule modulators