Figure 2.

Examples of cell death that depend on autophagy components in different eukaryotic models. In the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, autophagic cell death is required for degradation of conidia and thus fungal pathogenicity, which can be inhibited by knockout of ATG8.⁴³ In Drosophila melanogaster, knockouts of ATG1, ATG2 and ATG18 demonstrated the requirement of autophagy for mid gut cell death.⁴⁵ In Caenorhabiditis elegans, autophagosome formation is required for necrotic cell death of neurons, which has been shown to be inhibited by knockout of ATG1 or RNAi knockdown of ATG6, ATG8 and ATG18.⁴⁶ Finally, in Arabidopsis thaliana, development of tracheary elements depends on autophagic cell death, which is inhibited in atg5 knockout mutants⁴⁷