Recent progress in autophagy and vascular calcification

Autophagy is a “self-devouring” biological process of the degradation of organelles and proteins by lysosomes in eukaryotic cells. In the past few years, some results revealed that autophagy played an important role in the regulation of vascular calcification. This review summarized the recent studies on autophagy in the process of vascular calcification, and discussed the effects of electrolyte imbalance, matrix vesicle release, oxidative stress, inflammatory reaction of vascular endothelial cells, and lipid metabolism in autophagy. The research progress of β-catenin/AMPK/CREB/Nrf2-ARE/Erα signal transduction pathways in autophagy induction was reviewed.