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Autophagy in unicellular eukaryotes.
- Source :
-
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences [Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci] 2010 Mar 12; Vol. 365 (1541), pp. 819-30. - Publication Year :
- 2010
-
Abstract
- Cells need a constant supply of precursors to enable the production of macromolecules to sustain growth and survival. Unlike metazoans, unicellular eukaryotes depend exclusively on the extracellular medium for this supply. When environmental nutrients become depleted, existing cytoplasmic components will be catabolized by (macro)autophagy in order to re-use building blocks and to support ATP production. In many cases, autophagy takes care of cellular housekeeping to sustain cellular viability. Autophagy encompasses a multitude of related and often highly specific processes that are implicated in both biogenetic and catabolic processes. Recent data indicate that in some unicellular eukaryotes that undergo profound differentiation during their life cycle (e.g. kinetoplastid parasites and amoebes), autophagy is essential for the developmental change that allows the cell to adapt to a new host or form spores. This review summarizes the knowledge on the molecular mechanisms of autophagy as well as the cytoplasm-to-vacuole-targeting pathway, pexophagy, mitophagy, ER-phagy, ribophagy and piecemeal microautophagy of the nucleus, all highly selective forms of autophagy that have first been uncovered in yeast species. Additionally, a detailed analysis will be presented on the state of knowledge on autophagy in non-yeast unicellular eukaryotes with emphasis on the role of this process in differentiation.
- Subjects :
- Cell Nucleus metabolism
Cytoplasm metabolism
Dictyostelium cytology
Dictyostelium genetics
Dictyostelium growth & development
Dictyostelium physiology
Endoplasmic Reticulum metabolism
Entamoeba cytology
Entamoeba genetics
Entamoeba growth & development
Entamoeba physiology
Eukaryota genetics
Eukaryota growth & development
Leishmania cytology
Leishmania genetics
Leishmania growth & development
Leishmania physiology
Models, Biological
Peroxisomes metabolism
Phagosomes metabolism
Ribosomes metabolism
Saccharomyces cerevisiae cytology
Saccharomyces cerevisiae genetics
Saccharomyces cerevisiae growth & development
Saccharomyces cerevisiae physiology
Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins metabolism
Trypanosoma cytology
Trypanosoma genetics
Trypanosoma growth & development
Trypanosoma physiology
Vacuoles metabolism
Autophagy physiology
Eukaryota cytology
Eukaryota physiology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1471-2970
- Volume :
- 365
- Issue :
- 1541
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 20124347
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2009.0237