Daniel Klionsky
University of Michigan

About this Book

Starting in the early 1970s, a type of programmed cell death called apoptosis began to receive attention. Over the next three decades, research in this area continued at an accelerated rate. In the early 1990s, a second type of programmed cell death, autophagy, came into focus. Autophagy has been studied in mammalian cells for many years. The recent application of the yeast genetic system has allowed the field to expand rapidly. Continued studies in these and other eukaryotic systems are likely to provide tremendous insight into autophagy, particularly at the mechanistic level. Autophagy is a process in which a cell carries out “self eating” either in response to starvation or various hormonal cues. This process occurs in all eukaryotic cells. It plays a normal role in cellular physiology but has received tremendous attention in the last few years because it has been shown to correlate with various diseases in humans. For example, defects in autophagy have been linked to cancer, cardiomyopathy and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. One of the most distinctive features of this book is that it is the only comprehensive book (actually, the only book at all) available on this topic. It covers essentially all current areas of autophagy, including research in animal cells, yeast, Drosophila, C. elegans and plants. The authors are recognized experts in the field. The book is written at a level that is appropriate for both experts in the field and newcomers.

Table of Contents

Autophagy: An Overview
Daniel J. Klionsky

Structural Aspects of Mammalian Autophagy
Monica Fengsrud, Marianne Lunde Sneve, Anders Øverbye, Per O. Seglen

Signaling Pathways in Mammalian Autophagy
Patrice Codogno and Alfred J. Meijer

Regulation of Mammalian Autophagy by Protein Phosphorylation
Michael T.N. Møller, Hamid R. Samari, Lise Holden, Per O. Seglen

Regulation of Autophagy by the Target of Rapamycin (Tor) Proteins
Hagai Abeliovich

Macroautophagy in Yeast
Takeshi Noda and Yoshinori Ohsumi

Cytoplasm to Vacuole Targeting
Per E. Stromhaug and Daniel J. Klionsky

Microautophagy
Chao-Wen Wang and Daniel J. Klionsky

Microautophagy of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Nucleus David Goldfarb

Glucose-induced Pexophagy in Pichia pastoris
Pouran Habibzadegah-Tari and William A. Dunn, Jr.

Selective Degradation of Peroxisomes in the Methylotrophic Yeast Hansenula polymorpha
J.A.K.W. Kiel and Marten Veenhuis

Chaperone-mediated Autophagy
J. Fred Dice, Patrick Finn, Amy Majeski, Nick Mesires, Ana Maria Cuervo

Vacuolar Import and Degradation
C. Randall Brown and Hui-Ling Chiang

Ubiquitin-mediated Vacuolar Sorting and Degradation
David J. Katzmann

Mammalian Homologues of Yeast Autophagy Proteins
Tamotsu Yoshimori and Noboru Mizushima

Autophagy in Plants
Yuji Moriyasu and Daniel J. Klionsky

Autophagy in Caenorhabditis elegans
Attila L. Kovacs, Tibor Vellai, Fritz Müller

Role of Autophagy in Developmental Cell Growth and Death: Insights from Drosophila
Thomas P. Neufeld

Trafficking of Bacterial Pathogens to Autophagosomes
William A. Dunn, Jr., Brian R. Dorn, Ann Progulske-Fox

Autophagy and Cancer
Norihiko Furuya, Xiao Huan Liang, Beth Levine

Autophagy, Neural Function and Neuronal Death
Aviva M. Tolkovsky

Autophagy and Neuromuscular Diseases
Takashi Ueno, Isei Tanida, Eiki Kominami

Autophagocytosis and Programmed Cell Death
Wilfried Bursch, Adolf Ellinger, Christopher Gerner, Rolf Schulte-Hermann