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Updated: May 25, 2026

Visualizing the Early Stages of Phagocytosis
Published on: February 3, 2017
Autophagy in innate recognition of pathogens and adaptive immunity
1Laboratory of Host Defenses, Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Korea.
Abstract:
Autophagy is a specialized cellular pathway involved in maintaining homeostasis by degrading long-lived cellular proteins and organelles. Recent studies have demonstrated that autophagy is utilized by immune systems to protect host cells from invading pathogens and regulate uncontrolled immune responses. During pathogen recognition, induction of autophagy by pattern recognition receptors leads to the promotion or inhibition of consequent signaling pathways. Furthermore, autophagy plays a role in the delivery of pathogen signatures in order to promote the recognition thereof by pattern recognition receptors. In addition to innate recognition, autophagy has been shown to facilitate MHC class II presentation of intracellular antigens to activate CD4 T cells. In this review, we describe the roles of autophagy in innate recognition of pathogens and adaptive immunity, such as antigen presentation, as well as the clinical relevance of autophagy in the treatment of human diseases.
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