Figure 2.

Autophagy and vascular tone. (A) Autophagic clearance of damaged mitochondria (mitophagy) is critical to maintaining homeostasis. Mitophagy is induced by PINK1‐Parkin signaling as described in the section on vascular tone, homeostasis, and the response to metabolic stress, and is balanced by mitochondrial biogenesis, induced by peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor γ co‐activator (PGC) 1α. Effects of autophagy on ECs include modulation of NO signaling, where it has both positive and negative effects. (B and C) Whereas potassium channel ion flow is also critically important to vascular tone, these images depict autophagic regulation of NO induced vasoconstriction (B) and vasodilation (C). AA, amino acids.