Autophagy is an adaptive process in response to cellular stress (nutrient starvation, oxidative stress, hypoxia, protein aggregation,...) to prevent cell damage and promote cell survival (1,2).
Key autophagic factors induce these autophagic mechanisms resulting in the processing and degradation of damaged material by autolysosomes (3). These factors need to be tightly controlled to ensure cellular homeostasis.Left: The 23 pairs of chromosomes of cells in which autophagy is functioning look normal and healthy with no structural or numerical aberrations (each color represents a unique chromosome pair).