Autosis: a new addition to the cell death tower of babel

Abstract

Autophagy is a cellular recycling and stress response that degrades organelles and long-lived proteins and serves to protect cells from the potential damage induced by dysfunctional organelles and protein aggregates.1 Autophagy can also be used as a recycling or salvage process to provide amino acids, nucleotides and other building blocks to protect cells from some, but not all, forms of starvation.