BECN1 and serum lipopolysaccharide activity: We discovered that enhancing autophagy via the specific activation of Beclin-1, a universally expressed autophagy initiation factor (Liang et al., 1998; Liang et al., 1999), protects mitochondria, reduces mitochondrial DAMPs, and alleviates inflammation in the heart during endotoxemia (Sun et al., 2018).