Progress in Plant Autophagy

Abstract: Autophagy is an important process for the turnover of cytoplasmic components， during which damaged proteins and organelles are engulfed in double membrane vesicles called autophagosomes and delivered into lysosomes (in mammal) or vacuoles (in yeast/plant) for degradation and recycling. Autophagy is conserved in higher eukaryotes including plants. The identification of ATG genes in plants based on sequence alignment and isolation of autophagy-defective plants both contributed to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms and the role of autophagy in plants. In this review， we focus mainly on the research progress in the mechanisms and the physiological roles of plant autophagy.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2010.05.0001