Autophagy in eukaryotic cells is a cellular quality control process to deliver cytoplasmic constituents for lysosomal degradation, which enables cells to recycle nutrients for survival during nutrient starvation [12] . Rapamycin, an inhibitor of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) has been used to stimulate autophagy. In the steady state, autophagy-mediated antigen processing in thymic epithelial cells could have a crucial role in the induction and maintenance of CD4 + T-cell tolerance [12, 13] .