Mitophagy plays a role in metabolic adaptation, such as in yeast cells switching to glycolysis or in the differentiation of retinal ganglion cells and macrophages.

“So these yeast cells don't eat much oxidative phosphorylation, and they essentially rely during the process on glycolysis. So they adapt to this change by destroying most of their mitochondria, by mitophagy. And this makes actually a metabolic adaptation of the yeast cell efficient.”