自噬与软骨细胞生存及软骨损伤

背景：自噬是细胞通过溶酶体途径处理内源性底物的过程，它普遍存在于机体细胞中，又被看作是细胞Ⅱ型程序性死亡，自噬可能是正常软骨细胞的一种保护或平衡机制。目的：就自噬与软骨及其损伤相关性的最新研究进展进行讨论，旨在对自噬在软骨及其损伤修复中的作用有一个更好的理解。方法：应用计算机检索中国知网、万方数据库及PubMed数据库最近20年有关自噬与软骨损伤方面的文献，中文检索词为“自噬、软骨、软骨细胞”，英文检索词为“autophagy、cartilage、chondrocytes、beclin1、LC3”。结果与结论：软骨细胞能感受关节内微环境变化而做出应答，以调整细胞基质代谢，维持关节软骨生物学功能，而软骨细胞所处低氧环境是引起细胞自噬的重要因素。自噬是正常软骨细胞的一种平衡或者保护机制，虽然自噬与软骨及其损伤相关性在近些年的研究中取得了长足的进步，但不得不承认其仍处于初级阶段，在分子水平上一些Atg的发现加深了对自噬的认识，但在软骨中如何诱导自噬途径，自噬信号是如何传导的，对软骨细胞生存会产生怎样的影响等方面的了解还不够丰富，有待广大学者进一步研究。

Autophagy effects on chondrocyte survival and cartilage damage

BACKGROUND:Autophagy is the cellular process of lysosomal pathway processing by endogenous substrates, which exists in the body cells and has been considered as type II programmed cell death. Autophagy may be a protective or balancing mechanism of normal chondrocytes. OBJECTIVE:To discuss the latest research progress in autophagy and cartilage damage aiming to better understanding the role of autophagy in cartilage damage and repair.METHODS:A computer-based search of CNKI, Wanfang database and PubMed database was performed for articles relevant to autophagy and cartilage damage published in recent 20 years with the key words of “autophagy, cartilage, chondrocytes, beclin1, LC3” in Chinese and English.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Intra-articular chondrocytes can response to the changes in the microenvironment so as to adjust the extracellular matrix metabolism and maintain the biological function of   articular cartilage. Hypoxic environment in which chondrocytes eixt is an important factor to causes autophagy. Autophagy is a normal balance or protection mechanism of chondrocytes. Studies on the correlation of autophagy with cartilage damage have made considerable progress in recent years, but still in its infancy. Atg discovery at the molecular level deepens the understanding of autophagy, but the induction of cartilage autophagy pathway, signal transduction, and their effects on the survival of chondrocytes are not clear yet, which need further studies.