Role of autophagy in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease

Figure 1 Autophagy mechanism. The autophagy pathway. During this process, the endoplasmic reticulum or other membranous cellular structures respond to stimuli by generating a double-membrane structure called a phagophore. On this phagophore, ATG16L1 forms a complex with an ATG5-ATG12 conjugate, which multimerizes and then lipidates LC3 (LC3-II). Simultaneously, the phagophore elongates to envelop the cytoplasm or organelle to be degraded, forming an autophagosome, a unique double-membrane organelle. The outer membrane of the autophagosome then fuses with a lysosome to form an autolysosome, and the inner membrane degrades and absorbs its contents.