FIGURE 3.

Relationship between autophagy and disease. Schematic depicting the autophagy-related disease in different tissue. (A) In the muscle, both excessive and insufficient autophagy will cause muscle-wasting disease. (B) In the eye, excessive autophagy may lead to diabetic retinopathy, while insufficient autophagy may result in age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma and cataracts. (C) In the brain, the accumulation of misfolded proteins and inclusion bodies is the common pathological hallmark for various neurodegenerative disorders (top). Autophagy may help to eliminate the aggregated proteins and prevent neurodegeneration. Perturbations throughout the autophagic cycle, from autophagosome development to autolysosome formation, have been suggested to cause neurodegenerative disease. The key points in the autophagy pathway along with the associated neurodegenerative diseases are highlighted below. (D) Age-related decline in autophagy may lead to liver steatosis, hepatocyte apoptosis, and hepatic inflammation. AD: Alzheimer’s disease; PD: Parkinson’s disease; HD: Huntington disease.