5.6. Caution merited to avoid excessive mitophagy induction
As mentioned above, mild mitophagy induction is a benign process in
mammalian cells, whereas excessive mitophagy may have adverse effects.
In line with this, caution should be exercised when implementing
combinational therapeutic systems. Currently, there is no available
method to restrain mitophagy overactivation upon using mitophagy
inducers. Thus, melatonin therapy and accessory therapeutic agents might
lead to mitophagy overactivation. However, executing pre-clinical
studies may show us a safe regimen for applying these agents. Thus, we
propose dose-finding and duration-finding studies to identify optimal
drug concentrations and treatment durations to avoid excessive mitophagy
activation, while maintaining mild induction. Of note, some drugs also
exhibit different effects in terms of intensity at different times of
the day, which is referred to as chronopharmacology.