How does autophagy affect the immune system?

Autophagy acts as an immune effector that mediates pathogen clearance. The roles of autophagy bridge both the innate and adaptive immune systems and include functions in thymic selection, antigen presentation, promotion of lymphocyte homeostasis and survival, and regulation of cytokine production.

What is the mechanism of autophagy?

2. Autophagy Mechanism. Autophagy involves the formation of a double-membrane vesicle, which encapsulates cytoplasm, malformed proteins, long-lived proteins, and organelles and then fuses with lysosomes for degradation.

What is autophagy in immunology?

Autophagy is an essential, homeostatic process by which cells break down their own components. Perhaps the most primordial function of this lysosomal degradation pathway is adaptation to nutrient deprivation.

Does autophagy help with viruses?

As a catabolic pathway of mammalian cells, autophagy controls viral infections at multiple levels by causing the destruction of viruses, regulating inflammatory responses and promoting antigen presentation. Moreover, viruses manipulate autophagy for their immune evasion, replication and release from infected cells.

Is autophagy innate or adaptive?

Rapidly accumulating evidence has shown that autophagy is a component of innate immunity and is involved in host defense elimination of pathogens, including viruses.

What happens in your body during autophagy?

Under normal conditions, when the cell has sufficient nutrients, autophagy degrades damaged components in the cell. When fasting starves the cells, autophagy helps digest some of the cell components, to provide the necessary energy for survival. The liver stores excess glucose as glycogen.

What is macrophage autophagy?

Autophagy in macrophages has different functions, being responsible for xenophagy, LC3-associated phagocytosis (LAP), production and delivery of antimicrobial peptides, and control of inflammasome activation. Many pathogens have developed strategies to escape xenophagy and LAP.