Department of Plant Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100, Israel.
Protoplasma. 2012 Apr;249(2):285-99. doi: 10.1007/s00709-011-0296-z. Epub 2011 Jun 10.
Autophagy is an evolutionary conserved process of bulk degradation and nutrient sequestration that occurs in all eukaryotic cells. Yet, in recent years, autophagy has also been shown to play a role in the specific degradation of individual proteins or protein aggregates as well as of damaged organelles. The process was initially discovered in yeast and has also been very well studied in mammals and, to a lesser extent, in plants. In this review, we summarize what is known regarding the various functions of autopahgy in plants but also attempt to address some specific issues concerning plant autophagy, such as the insufficient knowledge regarding autophagy in various plant species other than Arabidopsis, the fact that some genes belonging to the core autophagy machinery in various organisms are still missing in plants, the existence of autophagy multigene families in plants and the possible operation of selective autophagy in plants, a study that is still in its infancy. In addition, we point to plant-specific autophagy processes, such as the participation of autophagy during development and germination of the seed, a unique plant organ. Throughout this review, we demonstrate that the use of innovative bioinformatic resources, together with recent biological discoveries (such as the ATG8-interacting motif), should pave the way to a more comprehensive understanding of the multiple functions of plant autophagy.
自噬是一种普遍存在于所有真核细胞中的大规模降解和营养物质隔离的进化保守过程。然而，近年来，自噬也被证明在个体蛋白质或蛋白质聚集体以及受损细胞器的特异性降解中发挥作用。该过程最初在酵母中被发现，在哺乳动物中也得到了很好的研究，在植物中则研究得较少。在这篇综述中，我们总结了已知的自噬在植物中的各种功能，但也试图解决一些关于植物自噬的具体问题，例如除拟南芥以外的其他植物物种中自噬的知识不足，一些属于各种生物体核心自噬机制的基因在植物中仍然缺失，植物中存在自噬多基因家族以及植物中可能存在的选择性自噬，这是一个仍处于起步阶段的研究。此外，我们还指出了植物特有的自噬过程，如自噬在种子发育和萌发过程中的参与，种子是一种独特的植物器官。在整篇综述中，我们证明了使用创新的生物信息学资源，以及最近的生物学发现（如 ATG8 相互作用基序），应该为更全面地理解植物自噬的多种功能铺平道路。
