Figure 1.

The schematic diagrams represent an overview of the signaling pathways between autophagy and inflammaging. In young individuals (left), autophagy may contribute to maintain the innate physiological lifespan through distinct mechanisms in clearing intracellular mitochondrial ROS (mROS) and NLRP3 inflammasome resulting in decreased inflammaging (black dashed lines), whereas dysfunction of autophagy homeostasis during aging results in increased inflammaging (red lines). However, autophagy protects against the NLRP3 inflammasome-dependent aging process. Aging is only one of the consequences that regulate the depicted signal transduction pathways.