Selective types of autophagy

F Reggiori, M Komatsu, K Finley… - International journal of …, 2012 - hindawi.com
F Reggiori, M Komatsu, K Finley, A Simonsen
International journal of cell biology, 2012hindawi.com
The focus of this special issue of the International Journal of Cell Biology is to underscore
the recent developments in the field of macroautophagy and how this degradative pathway
intersects with cellular metabolism, complex physiological functions, and human diseases.
During the last decade, autophagy has become an expanding field in biomedical life
sciences due to its involvement with numerous intracellular processes. Autophagy also
plays a role in pathology, and it has the therapeutic potential to be the target for the …
The focus of this special issue of the International Journal of Cell Biology is to underscore the recent developments in the field of macroautophagy and how this degradative pathway intersects with cellular metabolism, complex physiological functions, and human diseases. During the last decade, autophagy has become an expanding field in biomedical life sciences due to its involvement with numerous intracellular processes. Autophagy also plays a role in pathology, and it has the therapeutic potential to be the target for the treatment of specific human diseases. Early studies suggested that autophagy was a nonselective process in which cytoplasmic structures were randomly sequestered into autophagosomes before being delivered to the mammalian lysosome or the plant and yeast vacuole for degradation. Now there is growing evidence that unwanted cellular structures can be selectively recognized and exclusively eliminated within cells (F. Reggiori et al.,“Selective types of autophagy”). This is achieved through the action of specific autophagy receptors, as reviewed by C. Behrends and S. Fulda in “Receptor proteins in selective autophagy”) and studied by K. Marchbank et al.
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