The Role of Hydrogen Sulfide Targeting Autophagy in the Pathological Processes of the Nervous System

Abstract

Autophagy is an important cellular process, involving the transportation of cytoplasmic contents in the double membrane vesicles to lysosomes for degradation. Autophagy disorder contributes to many diseases, such as immune dysfunction, cancers and nervous system diseases. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a volatile and toxic gas with a rotten egg odor. For a long time, it was considered as an environmental pollution gas. In recent years, H2S is regarded as the third most important gas signal molecule after NO and CO. H2S has a variety of biological functions and can play an important role in a variety of physiological and pathological processes. Increasingly more evidences show that H2S can regulate autophagy to play a protective role in the nervous system, but the mechanism is not fully understood. In this review, we summarize the recent literatures on the role of H2S in the pathological process of the nervous system by regulating autophagy, and analyze the mechanism in detail, hoping to provide the reference for future related research.

Keywords

• autophagy
• cognitive impairment
• diabetes depression
• hydrogen sulfide
• Parkinson’s disease
• traumatic brain injury