Figure 2.

A proposed crosstalk between autophagy and phytohormones. The phytohormones-associated transcription factors (TFs) responsible for multiple biological processes are active or inactive during the plant growth, development and stress response. Upon certain conditions, these TFs are proposed to bind to the ATG8 (and additional ATGs) promoter to trigger its expression, leading to the induction or inactivation of autophagy as indicated in the left upper square. Subsequently, the cargo receptors (such as phytohormone related proteins) and/or other biomolecules are delivered into the autophagosome, which is then transported into the vacuole for degradation as indicated in the left bottom squares. This process feedback modulates the homeostasis of phytohormones metabolism and signaling transduction at certain stages; eventually, this loop-regulation of each phytohormones with autophagy contributing to different aspects of the plant growth, development and stress response as representatively indicating in the right square from No.1 to No.11.