Mechanical ventilation is an important supportive therapy in the intensive care unit (ICU) to assist the critically ill patients with respiratory failure. But longer ventilation time has been proven to contribute to the lung injury which has been recognized as ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI). Recently studies have suggested that NF-kappaB signaling pathways may play a critical role in the process of inflammation and autophagy, and autophagy can reduce the damage of VILI partly by activating the NF-kappaB pathways. Thus, we propose that autophagy may facilitate ventilator-induced lung injury partly through activation of NF-kappaB pathway, which might be a new potential therapeutic target for ventilator-induced lung injury. Although the exact mechanism of autophagy and its exact role in the VILI need to be further explored, at least it provides us a potential target in the future prevention of VILI.

Keywords: Autophagy - physiology, Models, Biological, Signal Transduction - physiology, Ventilator-Induced Lung Injury - physiopathology