The interplay between pathogens and Atg8 family proteins: thousand-faced interactions.

Autophagy is an intracellular degradation and recycling process that can also remove pathogenic intracellular bacteria and viruses from within cells (referred to as xenophagy) and activate the adaptive immune responses. But autophagy-especially Atg proteins including Atg8 family members-can also have proviral and probacterial effects. In this review, we summarize known interactions of bacterial, parasitic, and viral proteins with Atg8 family proteins and the outcome of these interactions on pathogen replication, autophagy, or mitophagy. We discuss the value of prediction software and the research methodology in the study of pathogen protein-Atg8 family protein interactions, with selected examples of potential LC3-interacting region motif-containing SARS-CoV-2 proteins.