Autophagy is the process of bulk degradation of cellular proteins through an autophagosomic-lysosomal pathway and is important for normal growth control. It is involved in the preservation of cellular nutrients under starvation conditions as well as the normal turnover of cytosolic components and may be defective in tumor cells. During autophagy, autophagosomes (also known as autophagic vacuoles) form from the enclosure of cytoplasmic organelles and proteins by isolation membranes. These autophagic vacuoles then dock and fuse with lysosomes, allowing the lysosomal hydrolases to degrade the contents of the autophagic vacuoles.

In mammalian cells, APG7 is essential for autophagy conjugation systems, autophagosome formation, and the starvation-induced bulk degradation of proteins and organelles. Its activity is repressed by mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), a kinase that regulates cell growth and the cell cycle. Beclin-1, a coiled-coil Bcl-2-interacting protein homologous to the yeast autophagy gene apg6, is another important autophagy gene that is implicated in tumorigenesis and is expressed at reduced levels in human breast carcinoma, suggesting that defects in autophagy proteins may contribute to the development or progression of tumors. Beclin-1 activity can be modulated by PIST, a protein that interacts with Beclin-1 through its coiled-coil domain.

While the precise mechanism targeting autophagic vacuoles to lysosomes and mediating their fusion is unclear, two highly glycosylated proteins associated with the lysosome, LAMP1 and LAMP2, are known to be important for this activity. Mice lacking LAMP1 have very minor defects compared to those deficient in LAMP2 expression. However, the loss of both proteins results in embryonic lethality, suggesting that each protein possesses some unique and necessary functions.

ProSci offers a variety of autophagy antibodies. These include antibodies against damage-regulated autophagy modulator (DRAM) and autophagy related proteins APG7, PIST and LAMP-1 and LAMP-2. Additionally, ProSci offers an Autophagy Detection Set. ProSci antibodies are appropriate for ELISA, western blot, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) applications as noted for each autophagy antibody.

Also, we have an Autophagy poster in the posters section of our resources area of the ProSci website.