Figure 1. Possible steps of macroautophagy altered in neurodegeneration.
The possible defects that could be behind macroautophagy malfunctioning in different neurodegenerative disorders are depicted: 1. Reduced autophagy induction; 2. Enhanced autophagy repression; 3. Altered cargo recognition; 4. Inefficient autophagosome/lysosome fusion, and 5. Inefficient degradation of the autophagic cargo in lysosomes. Examples of neurodegenerative diseases for which alterations in each autophagic step have been described are shown. Atg: autophagy-related proteins; Vps: vesicular protein secretion protein; HDAC: histone deacetylase; AD: Alzheimer’s disease; HD: Huntington’s disease; PD: Parkinson’s diease; LSD: lysosomal storage disorders; SMA: spinal muscular atrophy.