Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, Garscube Estate, Bearsden, Glasgow, UK.
Autophagy. 2012 Jul 1;8(7):1159-62. doi: 10.4161/auto.20527. Epub 2012 Jun 22.
Autophagy is conserved throughout the eukaryotes and for many years, work in Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been at the forefront of autophagy research. However as our knowledge of the autophagic machinery has increased, differences between S. cerevisiae and mammalian cells have become apparent. Recent work in other organisms, such as the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, indicate an autophagic pathway much more similar to mammalian cells than S. cerevisiae, despite its earlier evolutionary divergence. S. cerevisiae therefore appear to have significantly specialized, and the autophagic pathway in mammals is much more ancient than previously appreciated, which has implications for how we interpret data from organisms throughout the eukaryotic tree.
自噬在真核生物中是保守的，多年来，酿酒酵母（Saccharomyces cerevisiae）中的相关研究一直处于自噬研究的前沿。然而，随着我们对自噬机制的了解不断增加，酿酒酵母（Saccharomyces cerevisiae）和哺乳动物细胞之间的差异变得明显起来。最近在其他生物体（如变形虫 Dictyostelium discoideum）中的研究表明，尽管进化分歧较早，但自噬途径与哺乳动物细胞更为相似，而不是与酿酒酵母（Saccharomyces cerevisiae）更为相似。因此，酿酒酵母（Saccharomyces cerevisiae）似乎已经发生了显著的特化，而哺乳动物中的自噬途径比之前认为的要古老得多，这对我们如何解释整个真核生物树中生物体的数据产生了影响。
