Canadian Journal of Medicine

Abstract

In December 2019, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei province, China [1, 2]. According to the literature, the coronavirus was found to interact with autophagy pathways [3–6]. The autophagy process (recycling pathway) is very important for the degradation of cytosolic compounds and the creation of building blocks in cells [7]. During starvation conditions, this process can be activated. It delivers the cytosolic components, including the damaged cellular organelles and mis-folded proteins, into lysosomes by establishing autophagosomes, where the degradation takes place [3, 8]. It is reported to have a paradoxical role in protecting cells from viral and bacterial infections, depending on the types of pathogens and the host cells [3, 9]. Commonly known processes are xenophagy (viral particle degraded) and virophagy (degradation of neosynthesized components from virus), and innate- adaptive immune induction, by which autophagy contributes to the antiviral response [8, 10, 11].