Mechanism (biology)

Cell biology

Philosophy

Biology

Cytosol

Apoptosis

Autophagy

Biochemistry

Computational biology

Genetics

Epistemology

Enzyme

BAG3

Cell

Macroautophagy (herein referred to as autophagy) is an evolutionary ancient mechanism that culminates with the lysosomal degradation of superfluous or potentially dangerous cytosolic entities. Over the past 2 decades, the molecular mechanisms underlying several variants of autophagy have been characterized in detail. Accumulating evidence suggests that most, if not all, components of the molecular machinery for autophagy also mediate autophagy-independent functions. Here, we discuss emerging data on the non-autophagic functions of autophagy-relevant proteins.

Autophagy-Independent Functions of the Autophagy Machinery