Autophagy in cell fate decisions: knowledge gained from Drosophila

Autophagy is an important process that maintains adult tissue homeostasis and functions by protecting cells in autonomous and non-cell-autonomous ways. By degrading toxic components or proteins involved in cell signaling pathways, autophagy preserves the balance among stem cells, progenitors, and differentiated cells in various tissues. In this minireview, we discuss recent studies performed in Drosophila that highlight new roles of autophagy in adult cell fate decisions, including quiescence, proliferation, differentiation, and death. Key words: autophagy, Drosophila, adult stem cells, differentiated cells, mitophagy, cell fate, homeostasis L'autophagie joue un role important dans le maintien de l'homeostasie et la fonction des tissus chez l'adulte en protegeant les cellules directement ou indirectement. En degradant les composes toxiques ou les proteines impliquees dans des voies de signalisation, l'autophagie preserve la balance entre les cellules souches, progenitrices et diferenciees dans diferents tissus. Dans cette mini-revue, seront discutees les etudes recentes effectuees chez la drosophile qui mettent en evidence des nou-veaux roles de l'autophagie dans le devenir de la cellule adulte, a savoir: la quiescence, la proliferation, la diferenciation et la mort. Mots-cles : autophagie, drosophile, cellules souches adultes, cellules diferenciees, mitophagie, destin cellulaire, homeostasie
Introduction Under homeostatic and stress conditions, the conserved catabolic process of autophagy, defined as lysosomal degradation of cellular constituents, plays a key role in tissue homeostasis, which we refer to [...]