Fig. 1. Modes of general autophagy and pexophagy.

As described in the text, general autophagy involves sequestration and degradation of nonspecific cargo (cytosolic proteins and organelles) either by engulfment into autophagosomes (macroautophagy) or by the invagination of the vacuolar membrane around these cargoes (microautophagy) (Fig. 1A). In an analogous fashion, pexophagy involves the engulfment of specific cargo, the peroxisomes (P) by either macro- or micropexophagy. While the formation of a pexophagosome around a peroxisome is the hallmark of macropexophagy (Fig. 1B), micropexophagy is morphologically characterized by vacuolar extensions (vacuolar sequestration membranes, VSM) and the cup-shaped micropexophagy apparatus (MIPA) that capture the peroxisome cluster (Fig. 1C).