TY - JOUR
T1 - Autophagy in metazoans
T2 - Cell survival in the land of plenty
AU - Lum, Julian J.
AU - DeBerardinis, Ralph J.
AU - Thompson, Craig B.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank Daniel E. Bauer for insightful comments and suggestions during the preparation of this review. Julian J. Lum is supported by a fellowship from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Ralph J. DeBerardinis is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health. Grants for the Thompson laboratory are provided in part by the National Institutes of Health.
Copyright:
Copyright 2008 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2005/6
Y1 - 2005/6
N2 - Cells require a constant supply of macromolecular precursors and oxidizable substrates to maintain viability. Unicellular eukaryotes lack the ability to regulate nutrient concentrations in their extracellular environment. So when environmental nutrients are depleted, these organisms catabolize existing cytoplasmic components to support ATP production to maintain survival, a process known as autophagy. By contrast, the environment of metazoans normally contains abundant extracellular nutrients, but a cell's ability to take up these nutrients is controlled by growth factor signal transduction. Despite evolving the ability to maintain a constant supply of extracellular nutrients, metazoans have retained a complete set of autophagy genes. The physiological relevance of autophagy in such species is just beginning to be explored.
AB - Cells require a constant supply of macromolecular precursors and oxidizable substrates to maintain viability. Unicellular eukaryotes lack the ability to regulate nutrient concentrations in their extracellular environment. So when environmental nutrients are depleted, these organisms catabolize existing cytoplasmic components to support ATP production to maintain survival, a process known as autophagy. By contrast, the environment of metazoans normally contains abundant extracellular nutrients, but a cell's ability to take up these nutrients is controlled by growth factor signal transduction. Despite evolving the ability to maintain a constant supply of extracellular nutrients, metazoans have retained a complete set of autophagy genes. The physiological relevance of autophagy in such species is just beginning to be explored.
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U2 - 10.1038/nrm1660
DO - 10.1038/nrm1660
M3 - Review article
C2 - 15928708
AN - SCOPUS:20344406240
SN - 1471-0072
VL - 6
SP - 439
EP - 448
JO - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology
JF - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology
IS - 6
ER -