Abstract: Autophagy is a highly regulated "self-digestion" pathway that participates in many processes such as the development and growth of organisms. Abnormal autophagy leads to the appearance of cancer cells. The main cause of cervical cancer is the persistent infection of high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV), but viral infection alone is not enough to cause cancer. It is urgent to better understand the biological behavior of HPV and its mechanism of inducing cervical cancer. Autophagy plays a fundamental role in the process of viral infection and malignant transformation, and it also affects the autophagy of cervical cells after HPV infection. The link between HPV and autophagy has led to the development of novel antiviral strategies aimed at inhibiting HPV infection. A number of studies have proved that autophagy plays an inhibitory role in promoting the HPV life cycle and tumor progression. It is great significance to restore autophagy during HPV infection and malignant transformation of cells. It also has clinical value in the construction of vaccines to prevent HPV infection and treat cervical cancer caused by HPV infection. This paper reviews the latest findings on how oncogenic HR-HPV affects autophagy, and proposes a new idea for seeking an effective method targeting autophagy to treat cervical diseases caused by HPV infection in the future.

Key words: Papillomaviridae；, Uterine cervical neoplasms；, Autophagy；, Lysosomes；, Papillomavirus vaccines