The role of ‘eat-me’ signals and autophagy cargo receptors in innate immunity

Highlights • Autophagy protects the host cytosol against bacterial invasion. • Galectins are cytosolic danger receptors for microbe-induced membrane damage. • Cargo receptors bridge ‘eat-me’ signals on bacteria and membranes damaged by bacteria to ATG8-like proteins on autophagosomes. • NDP52 is unique amongst cargo receptors as it detects two bacteria-associated ‘eat-me’ signals, that is, Galectin-8 and poly-ubiquitin. • LC3C is essential for anti-bacterial autophagy as it is the sole ATG8 family member that binds NDP52.