Dear Colleagues,

Macroautophagy (hereafter autophagy) is an evolutionarily conserved pathway that functions in bulk and selective removal and recycling of cytoplasmic components. Key to cellular homeostasis, autophagic degradation is a multi-step process that begins with the formation of the phagophore, followed by the expansion of the phagophore and sequestration of cargo, the closure and fusion of the phagophore membrane to form the autophagosome transport vesicle, and finally the fusion of the autophagosome with the lysosome, whereby the content is degraded by hydrolytic enzymes. Over the past thirty years, characterization of the Atg proteins and in particular the 18 constituting core autophagy machinery has generated molecular insights into key autophagy processes and in particular signal regulation of autophagy initiation and the biogenesis of the autophagosome. The discovery and characterization of different autophagy receptors has subsequently shed light on the plausible mechanism of cargo selection and sequestration in selective autophagy. More recently, the observation of biomolecular condensates formed by a number of autophagy factors has demonstrated the importance of liquid–liquid phase separation in the regulation of autophagy. With recent developments in new technologies, such as high-resolution cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), super-resolution microscopy, and CRISPR-Cas9-based genome editing, the stage is set for exciting investigations that will further advance our knowledge on how the different modules of the autophagy molecular machinery orchestrate this complex degradation process.

We invite all researchers working in the autophagy field to participate in this Special Issue. We welcome original research articles, reviewers, or short perspective articles on all aspects related to the molecular machinery of autophagy from yeast to humans. Articles with insights from a molecular perspective are especially welcome. Relevant topics include but are not limited to molecular structures and architectures of autophagy machinery, assay development for studying autophagy, lipid–protein interaction in autophagy, in vitro reconstitution of autophagy processes, and non-autophagy-related functions of the autophagy machinery.

Dr. Calvin Yip
Guest Editor

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• Macroautophagy
• Selective autophagy
• Core autophagy machinery
• Atg proteins
• Autophagy receptors
• Autophagosome biogenesis
• Phagophore assembly site
• Autophagosome–lysosome fusion
• Phase separation