Autophagy-mediated Nutrient Recycling and Regulation in Plants: A Molecular View

摘要

Autophagy is a major catabolic process in eukaryotic cells for delivering unwanted proteins or damaged organelles to the vacuole for degradation and recycling. In plants, it functions as a housekeeping process to maintain cellular homeostasis under normal conditions and is induced by stress and senescence; it thus plays important roles in development, stress tolerance, nutrient recycling, cell survival and metabolism. It is also known that autophagy is crucial for growth under dark-induced carbon starvation and nitrogen (N) deficiency conditions in Arabidopsis. In the present study, the authors review recent research on autophagy in plants, and discuss new insights into its core mechanism, regulation, selectivity and physiological roles for nutrient recycling. Potential future directions are also highlighted.