The cross-talk between the Hippo signaling pathway and autophagy:implications on physiology and cancer

Abstract

Organ development is precisely guided by spatiotemporal cross-talks between a variety of signaling pathways regulating cell differentiation, proliferation, growth arrest and physiological cell death. Aberrant signaling inputs invariably lead to tissue dysfunction and to certain conditions, even malignant transformation. In this review, we focus on the functional interplay between the Hippo signaling pathway and autophagy in normal tissue homeostasis and in malignant tumor progression. Mounting experimental evidence for the regulation of cancer cell malignancy and therapy resistance by the functional cross-talk between Hippo signaling and autophagy highlights this signaling axis as a suitable therapeutic target to combat cancer.