Autophagy and Aging: Roles in Skeletal Muscle, Eye, Brain and Hepatic Tissue.

Weizheng Liang,Ping Li,Kai Wang,Hongyang Yi,Chengwei Yu,Yuanzheng Ma,Shoutong Wu

doi:10.3389/fcell.2021.752962

Abstract

Autophagy is an evolutionary conserved degradative process contributing to cytoplasm quality control, metabolic recycling and cell defense. Aging is a universal phenomenon characterized by the progressive accumulation of impaired molecular and reduced turnover of cellular components. Recent evidence suggests a unique role for autophagy in aging and age-related disease. Indeed, autophagic activity declines with age and enhanced autophagy may prevent the progression of many age-related diseases and prolong life span. All tissues experience changes during aging, while the role of autophagy in different tissues varies. This review summarizes the links between autophagy and aging in the whole organism and discusses the physiological and pathological roles of autophagy in the aging process in tissues such as skeletal muscle, eye, brain, and liver.

Highlights

Autophagy is a tightly orchestrated process that degrades and recycles cytoplasmic components in lysosomes to maintain cellular homeostasis
It is important to understand the tissue-specific role of autophagy in aging, and the autophagy in skeletal muscle, eye, neuron and liver would be reviewed below (Figure 3)
Liver-specific Atg7 deficiency impaired the autophagic protein degradation induced by starvation in the liver and led to hepatic lobules disorders and cell swelling; the mutant mice developed serve hepatomegaly (Komatsu et al, 2005)

Summary

Introduction

Autophagy is a tightly orchestrated process that degrades and recycles cytoplasmic components in lysosomes to maintain cellular homeostasis. Autophagy reporter analysis and gene expression studies in many organisms reported that autophagic activity tended to decrease during aging. It is important to understand the tissue-specific role of autophagy in aging, and the autophagy in skeletal muscle, eye, neuron and liver would be reviewed below (Figure 3).

Results

Conclusion