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Autophagy: from phenomenology to molecular understanding in less than a decade

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 8, pages 931–937 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

In 2000, it was suggested to me that “Autophagy will be the wave of the future; it will become the new apoptosis.” Few people would have agreed at the time, but this statement turned out to be prophetic, and this process of 'self-eating' rapidly exploded as a research field, as scientists discovered connections to cancer, neurodegeneration and even lifespan extension. Amazingly, the molecular breakthroughs in autophagy have taken place during only the past decade.

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Figure 1: A dramatic increase in autophagy research.
Figure 2: Autophagy visualized by freeze-fracture electron microscopy.

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Acknowledgements

I thank P. Codogno, B. Levine, F. Meijer, N. Mizushima and P. Seglen for their comments, and apologize to those researchers whose work could not be cited due to space limitations. This work was supported by a grant from the US National Institutes of Health.

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  1. Daniel J. Klionsky is at the Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan, 210 Washtenaw Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2216, USA. klionsky@umich.edu,

    Daniel J. Klionsky

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Supplementary information

Supplementary information S1 (movie) | Autophagosome formation

The formation of an autophagosome is visualized by monitoring a green fluorescent protein (GFP)-ATG5 fusion protein in mouse embryonic stem cells through time-lapse video microscopy (5 minutes elapsed time). ATG5 localizes on the phagophore membrane during elongation and dissociates from the membrane upon completion of autophagosome formation. Movie provided by Noboru Mizushima (Tokyo Medical and Dental University). (AVI 599 kb)

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Klionsky, D. Autophagy: from phenomenology to molecular understanding in less than a decade. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 8, 931–937 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm2245

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