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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Jul 31.
Published in final edited form as: J Pathol. 2019 Feb 4;247(5):708–718. doi: 10.1002/path.5222

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Mitophagy promotes stemness. Mitophagy is a selective form of autophagy in which mitochondria are specifically targeted for degradation at the autophagosome. Recently, mitophagy has been specifically implicated in maintaining the stem cell state by promoting turnover of mitochondria and limiting the capacity of the stem cell for oxidative phosphorylation and making stem cells more dependent on glycolysis for energy demands. This has also been proposed to contribute to the quiescent state of stem cells. Inhibition of mitophagy suppressed CD44 expression and also promoted translocation of p53 to the nucleus, where it has been reported to antagonize expression of stem cell genes.