About this Research Topic
One of the quality control mechanisms to maintain cellular integrity is autophagy. This highly conserved mechanism serves to degrade and recycle the damaged cellular components to fuel metabolism. In Mammals, neural macroautophagy has been shown to be crucial for health and disease. In mouse models, many of the components of autophagy-related genes (ATG) knockouts are shown to be lethal at embryonic or neonatal stages. Conditional knockouts of ATG genes result in multiple types of neurodegenerations, motor function defects, and neural developmental defects. In humans, several disease-associated mutations of ATG genes are found with static encephalopathy of childhood, neurodegeneration, or congenital ataxia. Recently, a new study reported dysfunction of the essential autophagy component ATG7 in patients with childhood-onset neuropathy.
During periods of starvation, macroautophagy plays a crucial role as a master regulator of cellular metabolism and supplies the cells with metabolites such as nucleotides, amino acids, and fatty acids. During selective autophagy, target-specific receptors identify the damaged organelles or intracellular pathogens as cargos, which are subsequently encapsulated by phagophores. Mitophagy is a well-studied selective autophagy, however, further research is needed to clarify its contribution to nervous system metabolism.
This Research Topic aims to collect articles focusing on the role of autophagy in neural metabolism and explore the following questions. What role does autophagic input play in metabolism, especially within the nervous system? How does its function during development, nutrient shortage, or aging eventually lead to neurodegeneration? What are its molecular links in neuronal pathology, especially during the manifestation of neuronal defects? What is the metabolic contribution of autophagy, especially, selective autophagy in nervous system development and degeneration, as well as in overall health? How does the nervous system sense metabolic changes during stress, infection, or development? Resolving the metabolic input in the development of the nervous system and maintenance of neuronal fitness merits further understanding in neuronal biology and human health.
The editors welcome various article types (including Original Research, Methods, (Mini-) Reviews, Brief Research Reports, etc.) focusing on, but not limited to, the following areas:
• The role of autophagy in health and disease in the nervous system
• Novel methods to monitor autophagy in vitro and in vivo
• The role of selective autophagy in the nervous system
• Mitochondrial fitness and mitophagy in the nervous system
• Stress response and metabolic effect on the nervous system.
Keywords: mitochondria, autophagy, mitophagy, neurodevelopment, metabolism
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.