The definition of autophagy menas that autophagy is in eukaryotes rather than bacteria. Maybe there are some other similar pathway in bacteria, but those can't be called "Autophagy".

Hello Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Mirani

The presence of autophagy has never been reported in a prokaryotic cell. Nevertheless, prokaryotes have several recycling mechanisms, such as different types of proteolysis and proteasomal degradation.

Bacteria have vesicles, vesicle-tethering proteins and ubiquitin-like tags, which in theory may constitute a platform for a bona fide autophagic mechanism. Nevertheless, autophagy has never been identified in bacterial cells, leading to a safe conclusion that it is absent from this domain of life.

Please refer to the references I have attached. They will be helpful.

Article A bird's-eye view of autophagy

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17977463/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2958.1995.tb02311.x?sid=nlm%3Apubmed

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1365-2958.2000.01703.x?sid=nlm%3Apubmed

Best.

There are several ways to study autophagy in bacteria. One common approach is to use microscopy techniques to observe the presence and dynamics of autophagosomes, which are structures that form around cytoplasmic components targeted for degradation. Another method is to monitor the expression levels of autophagy-related genes and proteins using techniques such as Western blotting and qPCR. Additionally, you can test the effects of various chemicals or genetic modifications on autophagy induction or inhibition in bacterial cells to gain a better understanding of the regulation of the process.

Hello,

this is an interesting question. If autophagy means self-cannibalism, I don't know, but an approaching phenomena exists by some bacteria : Ixotrophy.

I have published a YouTube video on this strange topic:

https://youtu.be/GBV5sk-DoLQ

Studying autophagy in bacteria is a relatively new and evolving field of research. Here are some approaches and techniques that can be employed to study autophagy-related processes in bacteria:

Thank you for this detail