Selective Autophagy

During the last decade it has become evident that autophagy is not simply a non-selective bulk degradation pathway for intracellular components. On the contrary, the discovery and characterization of autophagy receptors which target specific cargo for lysosomal degradation by interaction with ATG8 (autophagy-related protein 8)/LC3 (light-chain 3) has accelerated our understanding of selective autophagy. A number of autophagy receptors have been identified which specifically mediate the selective autophagosomal degradation of a variety of cargoes including protein aggregates, signalling complexes, midbody rings, mitochondria and bacterial pathogens. In the present chapter, we discuss these autophagy receptors, their binding to ATG8/LC3 proteins and how they act in ubiquitin-mediated selective autophagy of intracellular bacteria (xenophagy) and protein aggregates (aggrephagy).