The crosstalk between ferroptosis and autophagy in cancer

Abstract

Background

In order to better understand the interplay between ferroptosis and autophagy, enhance the interpretation of the crosstalk between these two forms of regulated cell death, develop the effective pharmacological mechanisms for cancer treatment, discover novel biomarkers for better diagnostic, and envisage the future hotspots of the research on ferroptosis and autophagy, we harnessed bibliometric tools to study the articles published from 2012 to 2022 on the relationship between ferroptosis and autophagy.

Methods

Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database was used to conduct a comprehensive search and analysis of articles in this field from January 1, 2012, to September 1, 2022. The Citespace 6.1.R2 software and VOS viewer 6.1.8 software were utilized to analyze the overall structure of the network, network clusters, links between clusters, key nodes or pivot points, and pathways.

Results

A total of 756 articles associated with the crosstalk between ferroptosis and autophagy were published in 512 journals by 4183 authors in 980 organizations from 55 countries or regions. The distribution of countries and organizations was demonstrated using CiteSpace and VOS viewer. The top three countries with the most articles were China (n = 511), United States (n = 166), and Germany (n = 37). The most productive institutions were Guangzhou Medical University and Central South University (n = 42), but their centralities were relatively low, which values were respective 0.04 and 0.03. Kang and Tang published the most articles related to ferroptosis and autophagy (n = 49), followed by Jiao Liu (n = 22), Guido Kroemer (n = 20), and Daniel Klionsky (n = 12). Published studies on ferroptosis and asthma have the most cited counts. The top three keywords with the highest frequencies were autophagy (n = 283), cell death (n = 243), and oxidative stress (n = 165).

Conclusion

Our results provide insights into the development of recognition related to the crosstalk between ferroptosis and autophagy, and the current molecular crosslinked mechanisms in the context of common signal transduction pathways or affecting cellular environment to induce the adaptive stress response and to activate the particular form of regulated cell death (RCD), and the development of cancer treatment based on novel targets and signaling regulatory networks provided by ferroptosis and autophagy.

Keywords:

• Ferroptosis
• autophagy
• cancer
• target
• trend

Authors’ contributions

XiaodiLv, Yanglai Gao, Ming Dong, and Ying Wei designed this study. XiaodiLv, Bin Wang, Weifeng Tang, Jingjing Qin, and Wenqian Wang retrieved, screened, and analysed the literature. XiaodiLv wrote the manuscript. Gao and Wei revised the manuscript. All authors have contributed to the manuscript and approved the submitted version.

Dislosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant No. 82174495).