Macroautophagy or autophagy is an intracellular bulk degradation system mediated by lysosomes. Autophagy substrates include long-lived cytosolic proteins, intracellular pathogens and damaged organelles. Autophagosomes are then fused to lysosomes and the contents of autophagosomes are degraded by lysosomal hydrolases, and the resulting degraded components are reused for anabolic and catabolic processes. Autophagy is involved in many biological processes of normal physiology, such as mitigating metabolic stress, degradation of aggregate-prone proteins (e.g, mutant huntingtin), tissue homeostasis, and defects in autophagy process are associated with numerous pathophysiologies, including neurodegenerative diseases and tumorigenesis. The research in our lab currently focuses on autophagy regulation and its roles in Huntington's Disease.
