title: Eaten to death.
abstract: Macro-autophagy (hereafter referred to as autophagy) delivers cytoplasmic material to the lysosome for degradation, and has been implicated in many cellular processes, including stress, infection, survival and death. Although the regulation and role of autophagy in stress, infection and survival is apparent, its involvement during cell death remains relatively unclear. In this review, we highlight what is known about the role that autophagy can play during physiological cell death, and discuss the implications of better understanding cellular destruction that involves autophagy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cancer Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: Eric H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Baehrecke
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics; D001343:Autophagy / Q000235:genetics; D016923:Cell Death; D004023:Dictyostelium / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000235:genetics
keywords: ATG genes; apoptosis; autophagy; cell death; necrosis