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Perspectives
Autophagic Defects in Aging: Looking for an “Emergency Exit"?
Ashish C. Massey, Roberta Kiffin and Ana Maria Cuervo
volume 5 | issue 12
15 june 2006Pages: 1292 - 1296
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The ability of cells to renew their intracellular components and get rid of undesired or altered molecules decreases with age. Failure of autophagy is considered one of the main reasons for the build up of damaged components in the tissues of old organisms. We have recently shown that, declined activity of chaperone-mediated autophagy, a selective type of autophagy particularly impaired in aging, increases cell’s vulnerability to stressors. This finding supports that, added to its role in cellular clean up, chaperone-mediated autophagy is an essential component of the cellular response to stress. Failure to perform this function with age could underlie the inability of old cells to adapt to stress conditions, and explain the accelerated course of some protein conformational disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, as affected individuals age.
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.