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MBSJ MCC Young Scientist Award 2009
REVIEW: Selective autophagy regulates various cellular functions
Author(s) -
Komatsu Masaaki,
Ichimura Yoshinobu
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
genes to cells
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1365-2443
pISSN - 1356-9597
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2443.2010.01433.x
Subject(s) - autophagy , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , autophagosome , organelle , lysosome , cytoplasm , bag3 , ubiquitin , neurodegeneration , atg16l1 , programmed cell death , biochemistry , enzyme , gene , apoptosis , medicine , disease , pathology
Autophagy is a self‐eating system conserved among eukaryotes, in which cellular components including organelles are entrapped into a double membrane structure called the autophagosome and then degraded by lysosomal hydrolases. In addition to its role in supplying amino acids in response to nutrient starvation, autophagy is involved in quality control to maintain cell health. Thus, inactivation of autophagy causes the formation of cytoplasmic protein inclusions, which comprise misfolded proteins and the accumulation of many degenerated organelles, resulting in liver injury, diabetes, myopathy and neurodegeneration. Furthermore, although autophagy has been considered nonselective, increasing evidence points to the selectivity of autophagy in sorting vacuolar enzymes and removal of aggregate‐prone proteins and unwanted organelles. Such selectivity allows diverse cellular regulation, similar to the ubiquitin proteasome pathway. In this review, we discuss the physiological roles of selective autophagy and their molecular mechanisms.