Autophagy participating in inhibiting mycobacterium tuberculosis survival in infected macrophages

Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved process which plays a vital role in maintaining cytoplasmic homeostasis by degrading damaged organelles or misfolded proteins in phagolysosome. The anti-mycobacterial immunology is mainly dependent on macrophages which belong to the fi rst line of anti-mycobacterial immune defense system. Although the induction of autophagy suppresses intracellular survival of mycobacterial, the bacteria are capable of surviving and persisting within host macrophages because of its repertoire of evading the host immune response, and mycobacterial can limit the maturation of mycobacterial phagosomes to escape degradation by lysosomal hydrolases. Autophagy is closely related with mycobacterial tuberculosis. The researches on autophagy reveal a novel direction in regulating autophagy-mediated mycobacterial elimination, and provide potential targets for clinical treatment.