Autophagy is a lysosome-based degradation pathway of cytosolic cargos
activated to prolong survival during starvation and diverse stress conditions by
recycling of cellular content. In selective macroautophagy, specific cargos that could be
misfolded proteins, damaged organelles, or intracellular pathogens selectively undergo
degradation within autolysosomal compartments. However, some pathogens exhibit
highly evolved tactics for evading autophagic recognition and are capable of surviving
and replicating within the cytoplasm. Because autophagy is inducible in cells infected
with pathogens that block autophagy, this mechanism has been proposed to be useful
for therapy. In this chapter, we focus on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, one of the top
causes of death worldwide and an archetype of intracellular pathogens, and its
interaction with the autophagy machinery. First, we describe the generalities of the
autophagic process and give examples of the bacterial strategies to evade or exploit
autophagy. Also, we discuss the induction of autophagy as a therapeutic approach to
circumvent the escape of bacteria from autophagy by using three types of autophagy
inducers, the natural compounds, the microbial compound, and drugs. Also, we argue
the main concerns that should be taken into account when using autophagy inducers as
therapeutic agents.
Keywords: Autophagy, LC3, Tuberculosis, Macrophage, Immunomodulator,
Rapamycin, Loperamide, MDP, Tri-DAD, NDGA.
