OVERVIEW Neuronal Autophagy: Self-eating or Self-cannibalism in Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract Autophagy is a major intracellular degeneration pathway involved in the elimination and recycling of dam-aged organelles and long-lived proteins by lysosomes. Many of the pathological factors, which trigger neurodegenerative diseases, can perturb the autophagy activity, which is asso-ciated with misfolded protein aggregates accumulation in these disorders. Alzheimer’s disease, the first neurodegen-erative disorder between dementias, is characterized by two aggregating proteins, b-amyloid peptide (plaques) and s-protein (tangles). In Alzheimer’s disease autophagosomes dynamically form along neurites within neuronal cells and in synapses but effective clearance of these structures needs retrograde transportation towards the neuronal soma where there is a major concentration of lysosomes. Maturation of autophago-lysosomes and their retrograde trafficking ar