Digesting the Expanding Mechanisms of Autophagy

Autophagy is a catabolic 'self-eating' pathway that is emerging as a crucial integration point in cell physiology. With its own set of genes, the autophagy pathway communicates with virtually all signalling networks and organelles. Recent advances have been made in understanding the origin of the autophagosomal membrane, novel regulators, and the mechanisms by which specific intracellular membranes become autophagy substrates. New studies on non canonical autophagy, mediated by subsets of autophagy proteins, and the role of autophagy proteins in non-autophagy pathways are also emerging in many different biological contexts. Our understanding of canonical autophagy, including membrane origin and autophagy proteins, needs to be considered together with emerging noncanonical pathways.

自噬是一种分解代谢的“自我吞噬”途径，它正在成为细胞生理学中一个关键的整合点。自噬途径拥有自己的一套基因，几乎与所有的信号网络和细胞器都有联系。在理解自噬体膜的起源、新型调节因子以及特定细胞内膜成为自噬底物的机制方面取得了最新进展。在许多不同的生物学背景下，关于由部分自噬蛋白介导的非经典自噬以及自噬蛋白在非自噬途径中的作用的新研究也不断涌现。我们对经典自噬（包括膜的起源和自噬蛋白）的理解需要与新出现的非经典途径一起考虑。