Multifaceted Housekeeping Functions of Autophagy

Abstract

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved intracellular degradation
process in which cytoplasmic components are captured in
double membrane vesicles called autophagosomes and delivered to lysosomes
for degradation. This process has an indispensable role in maintaining
cellular homeostasis. The rate at which the dynamic turnover of
cellular components takes place via the process of autophagy is called
autophagic flux. In this review, we discuss about the orchestrated events
in the autophagy process, transcriptional regulation, role of autophagy
in some major human diseases like cancer, neurodegeneration (aggrephagy),
and pathogenesis (xenophagy). In addition, autophagy has noncanonical
roles in protein secretion, thus demonstrating the multifaceted
role of autophagy in intracellular processes.