Autophagy maintains cell, tissue and organism homeostasis through degradation. Complex post-translational modulation of the Atg (autophagy-related) proteins adds additional entry points for crosstalk with other cellular processes and helps define cell-type-specific regulations of autophagy. Beyond the simplistic view of a process exclusively dedicated to the turnover of cellular components, recent data have uncovered unexpected functions for autophagy and the autophagy-related genes, such as regulation of metabolism, membrane transport and modulation of host defenses--indicating the novel frontiers lying ahead.