title: Autophagy in Plants--What's New on the Menu?
abstract: Autophagy is a major cellular degradation pathway in eukaryotes. Recent studies have revealed the importance of autophagy in many aspects of plant life, including seedling establishment, plant development, stress resistance, metabolism, and reproduction. This is manifested by the dual ability of autophagy to execute bulk degradation under severe environmental conditions, while simultaneously to be highly selective in targeting specific compartments and protein complexes to regulate key cellular processes, even during favorable growth conditions. Delivery of cellular components to the vacuole enables their recycling, affecting the plant metabolome, especially under stress. Recent research in Arabidopsis has further unveiled fundamental mechanistic aspects in autophagy which may have relevance in non-plant systems. We review the most recent discoveries concerning autophagy in plants, touching upon all these aspects.
authors.affiliation: Biochimie et Physiologie Moléculaire des Plantes, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5004 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)/Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)/Université de Montpellier 2 (UM2)/SupAgro, 2 Place Viala, 34060 Montpellier, France.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Michaeli
authors.affiliation: Weizmann Institute of Science, 234 Herzl Street, 7610001 Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Gad
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Galili
authors.affiliation: Institut de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes, CNRS Unité Propre de Recherche 2357, Conventionné avec l'Université de Strasbourg, 67084 Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Genschik
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Pflanzenphysiologie, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Alisdair R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Fernie
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Pflanzenphysiologie, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam, Germany. Electronic address: avin@mpimp-golm.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Tamar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Avin-Wittenberg
mesh_terms: D001343:Autophagy; D005502:Food; D008954:Models, Biological; D010944:Plants / Q000378:metabolism*; D012106:Research
keywords: ATG genes; Arabidopsis; autophagy; metabolism; selective autophagy