Table 1.

Summary of Roles of Autophagy Genes in Cellular Growth Control

Organism	Relevant Gene(s) Mutation*	Phenotype	Reference
C. elegans	unc-51 (Atg1/ULK); bec-1 (Atg6/beclin 1)	Decreased worm length**	(Aladzsity et al., 2007)
	daf-2 (Igf-1)	Increased cell size rescued by unc-51 or bec-1 mutants	(Aladzsity et al., 2007); (McCulloch and Gems, 2003)
Drosophila	Atg1 (ULK) overexpression	Decreased cell size	(Scott et al., 2007)
	Atg1−/−	Normal cell size in well- fed animals; increased size in rapamycin-treated animals	(Scott et al., 2007)
	Atg1−/−, dTOR	Atg1−/− partially rescues the decreased cell size of dTOR mutants	(Lee et al., 2007)
Mammalian	Atg5−/− (mouse cell lines)	Increased cell size of starved fibroblasts; no change in cell cycle profile; no impairment of entry into quiescence	(Hosokawa et al., 2006); (Valentin and Yang, 2008)
	beclin 1+/− (mice)	Increased proliferation in mammary epithelial cells and splenic germinal center lymphocytes	(Qu et al., 2003)
	Ambra1−/− (mice)	Increased cell proliferation in fetal brain	(Fimia et al., 2007)
	Atg7 shRNA, Atg5 shRNA (human cell lines)	Delayed onset of senescence	(Young et al., 2009)

^*Gene names in other organisms listed in parentheses

^**Decreased cell size in autophagy-deficient C. elegans is proposed to occur through impaired ability to utilize cytosolic materials for cell remodeling and elongated cell shape.