Autophagy

Autophagy is an intracellular degradation process that is triggered by cellular stresses. There are three primary types of autophagy - macroautophagy, chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) and late endosomal microautophagy. Despite being morphologically distinct, all three processes culminate in the delivery of cargo to the lysosome for degradation and recycling (Parzych KR et al, 2014). In macroautophagy a double membrane compartment sequesters the cargo and delivers it to the lysosome. Chaperones are used to deliver specific cargo proteins to the lysosome in CMA. In microautophagy invaginations of the endosomal membrane are used to capture cargo from the cytosol. Autophagy can target a wide range of entities ranging from bulk proteins and lipids to cell organelles and pathogens giving rise to several subclasses such as mitophagy, lipophagy, xenophagy, etc. (Shibutani ST 2014 et al).

Summary from Reactome (R-HSA-9612973), read 2026-09-23.