Studying autophagy in zebrafish

Abstract

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process which allows lysosomal degradation of complex cytoplasmic components into basic biomolecules that are recycled for further cellular use. Autophagy is critical for cellular homeostasis and for degradation of misfolded proteins and damaged organelles as well as intracellular pathogens. The role of autophagy in protection against age-related diseases and a plethora of other diseases is now coming to light; assisted by several divergent eukaryotic model systems ranging from yeast to mice. We here give an overview of different methods used to analyse autophagy in zebrafish—a relatively new model for studying autophagy—and briefly discuss what has been done so far and possible future directions.