Non-autophagic degradation roles of autophagy receptors

A growing body of evidence has indicated the important role of autophagy receptors in directing ubiquitinated or non-ubiquitinated cargos towards autophagy. Autophagy receptors bind to LC3 (microtubule- associated protein 1 1ight chain 3) on phagophore and autophagosome membranes, and recognize signals on cargoes in the delivery system of autophagy. However, the diverse domains in the receptor structures determine that their roles would never be limited to autophagy. Up to date, increasing numbers of the receptor proteins have been demonstrated to serve as a molecular link or switch participating in autophagic degradation, apoptosis or cell survival signals. Here, we highlight the non-autophagic roles of these receptor proteins to draw attention to this growing research topic.