Autophagy and RNA: Functional and Molecular Interplay in Health and Disease

Dear Colleagues,

The evolutionarily conserved process of autophagy serves to eliminate and recycle superfluous or damaged cellular components, with crucial importance for cellular physiology in health, infection and disease. Beyond its traditionally studied roles in maintaining protein, lipid and organelle homeostasis, increasing evidence indicates that autophagy can impact RNA homeostasis. Autophagy can degrade RNA, RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes and beyond its degradive capabilities, core autophagy players can additionally contribute to intracellular transport or extracellular release of RNA and related complexes. The physiological importance of these events is underscored by their broad impact on gene expression, cellular function, disease and organism survival. Autophagy itself is also regulated by RNAs and RBPs i.e. at the post-transcriptional and translational levels. During stress, when autophagy is enhanced, mRNA stability and translation is profoundly modulated and this allows selective processing and/or translation of key autophagy-related transcripts as part of these responses.

In this special issue of Cells, we invite you to contribute, either in the form of an original research article, review or shorter perspective article on all aspects of the theme that ties Autophagy to RNA. Articles describing cellular, biochemical, mechanistic and physiological aspects relevant to this topic, spanning several organisms from yeast to human, are welcomed. Encouraged topics may include, but are not limited to:

• RNA decay and nucleotide recycling by autophagy
• Lysosomal RNAses
• Autophagy-mediated degradation of RNA-binding proteins and RNP complexes
• Ribosome degradation by autophagy
• Regulation of autophagy by RNA and RNA-binding proteins
• Post-transcriptional and translational regulation of autophagy
• RNA and RBP transport and secretion by autophagy/lysosomes or related pathways
• Implications for the Autophagy-RNA interplay in physiology and disease
• Non-coding RNA and autophagy

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cells is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• RNA 
• Autophagy 
• Lysosomes 
• RNA-binding proteins 
• RNA homeostasis 
• Post-transcriptional regulation 
• Translation regulation 
• Gene expression 
• Non-coding RNA