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Review Series: Autophagy in Higher Eukaryotes - A Matter of Survival or Death
Eating for good health: Linking autophagy and phagocytosis in host defense
Miguel A. Sanjuan and Douglas R. Green
Volume 4, Issue 5July 1, 2008
Pages 607 - 611
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Autophagy is a conserved pathway that sequesters cytoplasmic material and delivers it to lysosomes for degradation. Digestion of portions of the cell interior plays a key role in the recycling of nutrients, remodeling, and disposal of superfluous organelles. Along with its metabolic function, autophagy is an important mechanism for innate immunity against invading bacteria and other pathogens. Multicellular organisms seem to have exploited autophagy to eliminate intracellular pathogens that would otherwise grow in the cytoplasm. Surprisingly, autophagy is involved in the response to extracellular pathogens as well, following their engulfment by conventional phagocytosis. Possible links between these two forms of cellular “eating” represent a new dimension in host defense.
Authors
- Miguel A. Sanjuan
- Department of Immunology, St. Jude Children%u2019s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee USA
- Douglas R. Green
- Department of Immunology, St. Jude Children%u2019s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee USA
We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:
Download PDF
If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.
