Multifaceted Housekeeping Functions of Autophagy

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved intracellular degradation process in which cytoplasmic components are captured in double membrane vesicles called autophagosomes and delivered to lysosomes for degradation. This process has an indispensable role in maintaining cellular homeostasis. The rate at which the dynamic turnover of cellular components takes place via the process of autophagy is called autophagic flux. In this review, we discuss about the orchestrated events in the autophagy process, transcriptional regulation, role of autophagy in some major human diseases like cancer, neurodegeneration (aggrephagy), and pathogenesis (xenophagy). In addition, autophagy has non-canonical roles in protein secretion, thus demonstrating the multifaceted role of autophagy in intracellular processes.