Autophagy is a process of intracellular bulk degradation in which cytoplasmic components including organelles are sequestered within double-membrane vesicles that deliver the contents to the lysosome/vacuole for degradation. Microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3) is a homologue of yeast Atg8, an essential component of autophagy. Following synthesis, the C-terminus of LC3 is cleaved by a cysteine protease-Atg4, to produce LC3-I, which is located in cytosolic fraction. LC3-I is activated by the E1-like enzyme Atg7 and forms a Atg7-LC3-I thioester. Atg7-LC3-I is transferred to Atg3 to form Atg3-LC3-I thioester. Atg3 is an E2-like enzyme that catalyzes the conjugation of LC3-I and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) to form LC3-II. The LC3-II-PE conjugate is essential for binding tightly to autophagosomal membrane.