WP4923 - Autophagy - Homo sapiens

Autophagy is a type of process that cell allows itself to degrade intracellular components, including organelles, proteins and foreign bodies. Autophagy is inhibited by mTORC1 and activated by AMPK. The process requires four steps: initiation, formation, membrane expansion and maturation, which are characterised by the structures that are roughly represented by the structures that are present: the omegasome, phagophore, atophagosome and finally autolysosme. It requires formation of the autophagosome, a double-membrane structure filled with the isolated cytoplasmic material that the cell wants to remove. The autophagosome eventually fuses with the lysosome to form the autolysosome.