The third and final installment of Daniel J. Klionsky's new three-volume treatment of autophagy, this volume focuses on monitoring autophagy with regard to disease connections, and presents methods that can be used to analyze autophagy in clinical samples. Edited by one of the leading authorities in the field, this volume and its companion volumes, Autophagy: Lower Eukaryotes and Autophagy in Mammalian Systems, provide a comprehensive overview of the techniques involved in studying autophagy in eukaryotes and simple animal systems, mammalian cells and non-human animals, and humans.
Particularly in times of stress, like starvation and disease, higher organisms have an internal mechanism in their cells for chewing up and recycling parts of themselves. The process of internal house cleaning in the cell is called autophagy - literally self-eating. In the future, research in this field will help to design clinical approaches that can turn on autophagy and halt tumor growth.
* Provides an overview of autophagy in regards to humans, specifically regarding disease connections and clinical samples.
* Includes methods to evaluate the role of autophagy in the drug-induced cell death of cancer cells in culture
*Presents reliable methods that, in this relatively new field, allow the reader to find appropriate techniques to identify, monitor, and quantify autophagic processes"

This is the companion volume to Daniel Klionsky s "Autophagy: Lower Eukaryotes, " which features the basic methods in autophagy covering yeasts and alternative fungi (aspergillus, podospora, magnaporthe). Klionsky is one of the leading authorities in the field. He is the editor-in-chief of "Autophagy." The November 2007 issue of "Nature Reviews" highlighted his article, Autophagy: From phenomenology to molecular understanding in less than a decade. He is currently editing guidelines for the field, with 230 contributing authors, that will publish in "Autophagy."
Particularly in times of stress, like starvation and disease, higher organisms have an internal mechanism in their cells for chewing up and recycling parts of themselves. The process of internal house cleaning in the cell is called autophagy - literally self-eating. Breakthroughs in understanding the molecular basis of autophagy came after the cloning of ATG1 (autophagy-related gene 1) in yeast. (To date, 30 additional yeast genes have been identified.) These ATG genes in yeast were the stepping stones to the explosion of research into the molecular analysis of autophagy in higher eukaryotes. In the future, this research will help to design clinical approaches that can turn on autophagy and halt tumor growth."

This is the companion volume to Daniel Klionsky's "Autophagy: Lower Eukaryotes," which features the basic methods in autophagy covering yeasts and alternative fungi (aspergillus, podospora, magnaporthe). Klionsky is one of the leading authorities in the field. He is the editor-in-chief of "Autophagy," The November 2007 issue of "Nature Reviews" highlighted his article, "Autophagy: from phenomenology to molecular understanding in less than a decade." He is currently editing guidelines for the field, with 230 contributing authors, that will publish in "Autophagy,"
Particularly in times of stress, like starvation and disease, higher organisms have an internal mechanism in their cells for chewing up and recycling parts of themselves. The process of internal "house-cleaning" in the cell is called autophagy - literally self-eating. Breakthroughs in understanding the molecular basis of autophagy came after the cloning of ATG1 (autophagy-related gene 1) in yeast. (To date, 30 additional yeast genes have been identified.) These ATG genes in yeast were the stepping stones to the explosion of research into the molecular analysis of autophagy in higher eukaryotes. In the future, this research will help to design clinical approaches that can turn on autophagy and halt tumor growth.
*Establishes the functional roles of specific cellular proteins in selective and nonselective autophagy in mammalian cells which aids researchers in determining why autophagy is shut down in neoplastia (growth of abnormal tissue mass) and turned on during bacterial invasion.
*Includes methods to evaluate the role of autophagy in the drug-induced cell death of cancer cells in culture, which helps researchersdesign clinical approaches that can turn on autophagy and halt tumor growth.
*Covers higher eukaryotes including lifespan in C. elegans to marine organisims and bridging into the clinical aspects, including autophagy in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML is one of four types of leukaemia), lung cancer, prostate cancer, and cardiac cells.