Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2021 Nov 19;13(22):5812. doi: 10.3390/cancers13225812

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© 2021 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

PMC Copyright notice

Mitophagy: Mitophagy is a specialized form of autophagy in which dysfunctional mitochondria are targeted and engulfed by autophagosomes that fuse with lysosomes to degrade the encapsulated mitochondria. Mitophagy is regulated by a number of different mechanisms, including Pink1/Parkin-mediated pathways and the BNIP3/NIX pathways. (A) When mitochondria are damaged by losing their membrane potential (ΔΨ), PINK1 recruits Parkin from the cytosol to the damaged mitochondria. Here, phosphorylated Parkin ubiquitinates outer membrane mitochondrial proteins, and causes mitochondrial engulfment by binding to LC3 on the isolation membranes that fuse with lysosomes. (B) BNIP3/NIX-mediated mitophagic pathways are activated in cancer cells by hypoxia. Outer mitochondrial membrane proteins, such as BNIP3/NIX, bind to LC3 on the isolated membranes, mediating the sequestration of damaged mitochondria into autophagosomes.