Autophagy-mediated targeted protein degradation.

Abstract

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved turnover process in eukaryotes, mediating the delivery of various cellular components to lysosomes for degradation and facilitating the recycle of the breakdown products to maintain the homeostasis. By harnessing this powerful autophagy-lysosomal degradation system, strategies for targeted protein degradation (TPD) have been emerging to remove specific disease-related proteins (both intracellular and cell-surface proteins) for complete elimination of their functions, bringing new insights to drug discovery. Herein, we give a brief introduction on how autophagy works followed by a focus on available small-molecule and macromolecule-based strategies for TPD mediated by autophagy.