ABSTRACT
Autophagy in animal cells plays a developmental role (reviewed in ref. 1). In plants as well, autophagy has been observed at various stages of development. Recent molecular genetic stud ies show that orthologs of most of the yeast autophagy genes exist in Arabidopsis thaliana. Mutations in these genes result in several developmental abnormalities suggesting that autoph agy in plants is involved in the normal physiology of plant development as well as in response to starvation. This chapter provides an overview on the role of autophagy in plants.
