REVIEW: Synthetic Activators of Autophagy

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Ekaterina A. Guseva^1,2,3,#a*, Julia A. Pavlova^1,2,3#, Olga A. Dontsova^1,2,3,4, and Petr V. Sergiev^1,2,3,5,b*

¹Center of Life Sciences, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, 143025 Skolkovo, Russia

²Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia

³Faculty of Chemistry, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia

⁴Shemyakin–Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, 117997 Moscow, Russia

⁵Institute of Functional Genomics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia

Received October 31, 2023; Revised November 24, 2023; Accepted November 26, 2023

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Autophagy is a central process for degradation of intracellular components that do not operate correctly. Molecular mechanisms underlying this process are extremely difficult to study, since they involve a large number of participants. The main task of autophagy is redistribution of cellular resources in response to environmental changes, such as starvation. Recent studies show that autophagy regulation could be the key to achieve healthy longevity, as well as to create therapeutic agents for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Thus, development of autophagy activators with established detailed mechanism of action is a really important area of research. Several commercial companies are at various stages of development of such molecules, and some of them have already begun to introduce autophagy activators to the market.

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KEY WORDS: autophagy activators, mitophagy, mTOR, torin 1, FCCP

DOI: 10.1134/S0006297924010024

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