Fig. 10

Regulating EMT by targeting autophagy. The autophagy attenuates EMT by inhibiting the overexpression of SNAIL and SLUG and activation of ROS-NF-κB-HIF-1α pathway. Moreover, ROS-induced NF-κB activation up-regulates SNAIL and MMPs expression to promote EMT. Additionally, autophagy accelerates lysosomal- mediated degradation of SNAIL and TWIST, resulting in EMT inhibition. On the other side, autophagy activation enhances EMT by increasing the expression of HMGB1, metastasis-associated protein oncostatin M and MMP-9, facilitating EMT markers expression in both RNA and protein levels accompany with promotion of TGF-β2/Smad signaling pathway activity, and up-regulating ILK by linking β-catenin and Smad signaling to induce EMT