The Role of Autophagy in Cell Survival and Cell Death

Abstract

Autophagy targets portions of cytoplasm, damaged organelles and proteins for lysosomal degradation and has crucial roles in development and disease. This issue presents a series of specially commissioned articles that highlight recent developments and emerging themes in this area. Autophagy is a lysosome-based degradation process whose primary function is to degrade long-lived proteins and recycle cellular components. So far, 3 types of autophagy have been documented, including macroautophagy, microautophagy and chaperone-mediated autophagy. Autophagy has been shown to degrade cargo in selective and no-selective manners. In literature, the term “autophagy” usually indicates macroautophagy. Macroautophagy is characterized by the formation of double membrane vesicles termed autophagosomes.
Keywords: Autophagy; Cell Survival; Cell death and Pathway