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Review
. 2021 Dec;48(12):1827-1837.
doi: 10.1111/1346-8138.16185. Epub 2021 Oct 16.

Autophagy in skin barrier and immune-related skin diseases

Chi Liu  1   2 , Lei Gu  3 , Jie Ding  4 , Qianchao Meng  5 , Nan Li  1 , Guifeng Dai  1 , Qinying Li  6 , Xueyong Wu  1
Affiliations
Review

Autophagy in skin barrier and immune-related skin diseases

Chi Liu et al. J Dermatol. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

Autophagy is a process which is highly conserved in eukaryotes to degrade or recycle cytoplasmic components through lysosomes to maintain cellular homeostasis. Recent studies have shown that autophagy also plays critical roles in cell apoptosis, inflammation, pathogen clearance, and so on under stressed conditions and thereby has been linked to a variety of human disorders. The skin is the largest organ of the body and serves as the first line of defense against environmental insult. Skin as a nutrient-poor environment requires recycling of limited resources via the autophagy machinery to maintain homeostasis. Therefore, dysregulation of autophagy has been linked to skin diseases. In this review, we describe the molecular machinery and regulation of autophagy, discuss its role in keratinocytes and skin barrier, skin immune cells, and immune-related skin diseases including autoimmune skin disorders, allergic skin diseases, infectious skin disorders, and antitumor immunity against skin tumor. Finally, we highlight the potential of autophagy as a therapeutic target for immune-related skin diseases, and delivery of autophagy-related molecules (such as inducers, inhibitors, or nucleic acid molecules) by virtue of physical materials (such as nanoparticles) or biological materials (such as peptides) to skin topically may obtain clinical benefits in immune-related skin diseases. Moreover, developing autophagy-related gene product-based biomarkers may be promising to diagnose immune-related skin diseases.

Keywords: autophagy; immune cells; immune-related skin diseases; keratinocyte; skin barrier.

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