Autophagy regulation by miRNAs: when cleaning goes out of service

Autophagy is a degradation pathway, recycling cell components in a number of basal and sublethal stress conditions. The formation of specific vesicles (autophagosomes), carrying their content to the lysosome, is primed by several post-translational molecular events, including protein modification and translocation to the ER or other autophagy start sites. However, less is known about autophagy transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation. In particular, the microRNA (miRNA) world, which plays crucial roles in development, signalling and stress response in eukaryotes, has not yet been directly linked to autophagy. A paper in this issue of The EMBO Journal reveals an miR-101-specific downregulation of STMN1, RAB5A and ATG4D genes, leading to an efficient decrease of autophagy. By this inhibition, miR-101 sensitizes resistant breast cancer cells to death. Thus, this work provides an exceptional insight into different novel levels of autophagy regulation and emphasizes the role that miRNAs can play in biomedici