Fig. 1.

Connecting the Insulin pathway to the Drosophila autophagy machinery. Both branches of the insulin pathway downstream of Akt regulate autophagy in Drosophila. Insulin signaling inhibits Tor, allowing for autophagic vesicle induction by a complex containing Atg1 and Atg13. The mechanism of autophagy induction by FOXO remains unknown, although it likely involves transcriptional regulation of autophagy-related (Atg) genes. Vesicle nucleation by the Class III PI3K/Vps34 complex is regulated, in part, by Tor/Atg1 activity. Elongation and completion of the autophagosome require the Atg8-PE and Atg12 ubiquitin-like conjugation systems. Many of the components of these complexes have been demonstrated to be active in Drosophila autophagy (colored boxes). However, the function of several conserved autophagy proteins (white boxes) in Drosophila remains undetermined