title: Autophagy: basic principles and relevance to transplant immunity.
abstract: Autophagy developed into a rapidly expanding field detailing its molecular mechanism and relevance in health and disease. Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process that summarizes a pathway in which intracellular material is degraded within the lysosome and where the macromolecular constituents are recycled. This "self-eating" process was originally described in a cell under starvation but now numerous studies established autophagy as a cellular response to stress. As a consequence, the autophagy machinery interfaces with most cellular stress-response pathways, including those involved in controlling immune response and inflammation. Autophagy also influences adaptive immunity through its effect on antigen presentation, naïve T cell repertoire selection and homeostasis and TH cell polarization. Data are emerging that dysregulated autophagy has an impact on human pathologies including infectious diseases, cancers, aging and neurodegenerative conditions. This review focuses on recent findings elucidating the ability of autophagy to be of significance in the transplant setting.
authors.affiliation: Division of Nephrology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bizargity
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schröppel
mesh_terms: D056704:Adaptive Immunity; D000818:Animals; D017951:Antigen Presentation; D001343:Autophagy; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D002470:Cell Survival; D006801:Humans; D000860:Hypoxia; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007165:Immunosuppression Therapy / Q000379:methods; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D007249:Inflammation; D016030:Kidney Transplantation; D008247:Lysosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D009399:Nephrons / Q000473:pathology; D016377:Organ Transplantation; D051437:Renal Insufficiency / Q000276:immunology* / Q000601:surgery; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors
keywords: Immune modulation; immune regulation; immunobiology; immunosuppression; innate immunity; kidney transplantation; nephrology