Autophagy (macroautophagy), a highly conserved eukaryotic mechanism, is a 
non-selective degradation process, helping to maintain a balance between the 
synthesis, degradation and subsequent recycling of macromolecules to overcome 
various stress conditions. The term autophagy denotes any cellular process which 
involves the delivery of cytoplasmic material to the lysosome for degradation. 
Autophagy, in filamentous fungi plays a critical role during cellular 
development and pathogenicity. Autophagy, like the mitogen-activated protein 
(MAP) kinase cascade and nutrient-sensing cyclic AMP (cAMP) pathway, is also an 
important process for appressorium turgor accumulation in order to penetrate the 
leaf surface of host plant and destroy the plant defense. Yeast, an autophagy 
model, has been used to compare the multi-valued functions of ATG 
(autophagy-related genes) in different filamentous fungi. The autophagy 
machinery in both yeast and filamentous fungi is controlled by Tor kinase and 
both contain two distinct phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase complexes. In this 
review, we focus on the functions of ATG genes during pathogenic development in 
filamentous fungi.