Autophagy in aging, disease and death: the true identity of a cell death impostor

Abstract

Although strictly speaking, the term autophagy merely means ‘self-eating’, many presume that this cellular self-eating is inevitably a form of cellular self-destruction. Indeed, within the cell death research field, autophagy has also long been defined as a form of non-apoptotic, or type II, programmed cell death. However, as revealed in this issue of Cell Death and Differentiation, which contains nine review papers on the topic of Autophagy in Aging, Disease and Death1–9 and one article outlining the recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2009,10 a consensus is emerging that autophagy is largely a cell death impostor which, in reality, functions primarily to promote cellular and organismal health.