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. 2021 Jun 29;9:691826. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.691826

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Copyright © 2021 Peters, Caban, McLaughlin, Roman, Bromfield, Nixon and Sutherland.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Schematic of the macroautophagy pathway. This pathway is initiated by two groups of proteins, the ULK (unc-51-like kinase 1) initiation complex and the PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) nucleation complex containing BECN1, which generate the phagophore (immature autophagosome) (A). As the phagophore continues to grow and sequester cargo, it forms a completed double-membraned vesicle termed the autophagosome, which encompasses the cargo to be degraded (B). The autophagosome then proceeds to fuse with an acidic lysosome containing hydrolytic enzymes (C) to form an autolysosome. (D) Within the autolysosome, the encapsulated cargo is broken down into its basic building blocks and is then extruded back into the cell cytoplasm for recycling (E). (Feng et al., 2014; Klionsky et al., 2016) Created with BioRender.com.