How autophagy saves mice: A cell-autonomous defense system against Sindbis virus infection.
Autophagy has diverse roles, including defense against infection. Levine and colleagues (Orvedahl et al., 2010) provide in vivo evidence for the antiviral function of autophagy in vertebrates: autophagy protects mice against lethal Sindbis virus CNS infection by degrading viral proteins whose accumulation would otherwise cause neuronal cell death.
Yoshimori
Tamotsu
T
Department of Cellular Regulation, Research Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Suita, Japan. tamyoshi@biken.osaka-u.ac.jp