Autophagy in the regulation of pathogen replication and adaptive immunity.
Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved homeostatic process by which cells deliver cytoplasmic material for degradation into lysosomes. Autophagy may have evolved as a nutrient-providing homeostatic pathway induced upon starvation, but with the acquisition of cargo receptors, autophagy has become an important cellular defence mechanism as well as a generator of antigenic peptides for major histocompatibility complex (MHC) presentation. We propose that autophagy efficiently protects against microbes encountering the cytosolic environment accidentally, for example, upon phagosomal damage, whereas pathogens routinely accessing the host cytosol have evolved to avoid or even benefit from autophagy.
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 0QH, UK. randow@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk
Felix
F
Randow
Christian
C
Münz
D056704:Adaptive Immunity; D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy; D002470:Cell Survival; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology