title: Autophagy: process and function.
abstract: Autophagy is an intracellular degradation system that delivers cytoplasmic constituents to the lysosome. Despite its simplicity, recent progress has demonstrated that autophagy plays a wide variety of physiological and pathophysiological roles, which are sometimes complex. Autophagy consists of several sequential steps--sequestration, transport to lysosomes, degradation, and utilization of degradation products--and each step may exert different function. In this review, the process of autophagy is summarized, and the role of autophagy is discussed in a process-based manner.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo 113-8519, Japan. nmizu.phy2@tmd.ac.jp
authors.forename: Noboru
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mizushima
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy; D011992:Endosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D005656:Fungal Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D007425:Intracellular Membranes / Q000378:metabolism; D008247:Lysosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D008561:Membrane Fusion; D008954:Models, Biological; D010588:Phagosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D011485:Protein Binding; D021381:Protein Transport; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins
chemical_list: D005656:Fungal Proteins; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins