自噬的前世今生

自噬是细胞通过溶酶体（或液泡）分解自身组分以达到维持细胞内正常生理活动及稳态的一种细胞代谢过程。自噬作为一种在真核生物中保守存在的细胞通路,与人类的疾病与健康息息相关。2016年,诺贝尔生理学或医学奖颁发给为自噬通路研究做出过卓越贡献的日本生物学家大隅良典（Yoshinori Ohsumi）。本文其一旨在通过介绍自噬及自噬相关基因的发现细节,带领读者了解自噬被发现和阐释的历程;其二旨在通过介绍自噬起始的相关机制及自噬与疾病的联系,引导读者对于自噬生理功能有更深入的理解;最后本文还提出了一些自噬领域目前尚待进一步研究的方向,供读者参考。

The Discovery and Research of Autophagy

Autophagy is an evolutionally conserved cell process, which degrades cellular contents to generate biomolecules depending on lysosome (or vacuole). The proper operation of autophagy has been shown to be tightly related to human health and diseases. 50 years ago, Christian de Duve discovered lysosome and proposed the idea of "autophagy". Nowadays, the Japanese molecular and cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi was given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2016 because of his great breakthrough in discovery of autophagy essential genes. This review will summarize the brief history of autophagy researches and propose some unanswered questions which are worth studying in the future.