ht tp://www.fupress.com/ijae ITALIAN JOURNAL OF ANATOMY AND EMBRYOLOGY Mitophagy in post-mitotic neurons

Mitophagy is a novel identified autophagic process through which defective and malfunctioning mitochondria are degraded or recycled. The balance between this process and mitochondrial biogenesis is crucial for post-mitotic neurons ’ survival, as mitochondria are the primary energetic source required for the formation and func-tion of axon terminals and dendritic spines (Amadoro et al 2014). As other cell types, neuronal populations also continually modulate size and number of these organelles, according to the variable energy demands and metabolic states throughout the entire lifetime and/or different sub-cellular compartments. In polarized neurons removal of damaged mitochondria can be a bioenergetically demanding task because these orga-nelles need to be actively transported from the axons and dendrites in order to fuse to cell body resident lysosomes (Wang et al 2006). Physiologically aging as well as numerous human neurodegenerative disease, including Parkison’s disease, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been associated with alterations in quality control of neuronal mitochondria (Santos et al 2010), but still now, mitophagy pathway and it