Center of Excellence for Environmental Safety and Biological Effects, Faculty of Environment and Life Sciences, Beijing International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Antiviral Drugs, Beijing University of Technology, 100 Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100124, China
Xuechai Chen
Center of Excellence for Environmental Safety and Biological Effects, Faculty of Environment and Life Sciences, Beijing International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Antiviral Drugs, Beijing University of Technology, 100 Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100124, China
Cuicui Ji
Center of Excellence for Environmental Safety and Biological Effects, Faculty of Environment and Life Sciences, Beijing International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Antiviral Drugs, Beijing University of Technology, 100 Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100124, China
Wenting Zhang
Center of Excellence for Environmental Safety and Biological Effects, Faculty of Environment and Life Sciences, Beijing International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Antiviral Drugs, Beijing University of Technology, 100 Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100124, China
Jianing Song
Center of Excellence for Environmental Safety and Biological Effects, Faculty of Environment and Life Sciences, Beijing International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Antiviral Drugs, Beijing University of Technology, 100 Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100124, China
Jie Li
Laboratory for Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Maricultural Organism Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Juan Wang
Center of Excellence for Environmental Safety and Biological Effects, Faculty of Environment and Life Sciences, Beijing International Science and Technology Cooperation Base for Antiviral Drugs, Beijing University of Technology, 100 Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100124, China
Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved pathway, in which cytoplasmic components are sequestered within double-membrane vesicles called autophagosomes and then transported into lysosomes or vacuoles for degradation. Over 40 conserved autophagy-related (ATG) genes define the core machinery for the five processes of autophagy: initiation, nucleation, elongation, closure, and fusion. In this review, we focus on one of the least well-characterized events in autophagy, namely the closure of the isolation membrane/phagophore to form the sealed autophagosome. This process is tightly regulated by ESCRT machinery, ATG proteins, Rab GTPase and Rab-related proteins, SNAREs, sphingomyelin, and calcium. We summarize recent progress in the regulation of autophagosome closure and discuss the key questions remaining to be addressed.
