Autophagy as an integral immune system component

Abstract Autophagy, an essential cellular homeostasis pathway, has been identified as a key component of human health and disease, contributing to and facilitating innate and adaptive immunity, inflammatory responses, and direct degradation of intracellular pathogens. As such, autophagy plays a key role in various infectious and autoimmune diseases. Not surprisingly, many pathogens have evolved mechanisms to evade and disrupt autophagy and subvert immune surveillance and promote their own replication. Therefore, autophagy can have both pro- and antiimmunity functions. This diversity of autophagy functions in immunity requires substantial additional research and shows significant promise in developing therapeutics centered on the modulation of autophagy to ensure appropriate immune responses to challenges in human health.