Autophagy, an evolutionarily conserved intracellular catabolic process, leads to the degradation of cytosolic proteins and organelles in the vacuole/lysosome. Different forms of selective autophagy have recently been described. Starvation-induced protein degradation, however, is considered to be nonselective. Here we describe a novel interaction between autophagy-related protein 8 (Atg8) and fatty acid synthase (FAS), a pivotal enzymatic complex responsible for the entire synthesis of C16- and C18-fatty acids in yeast. We show that although FAS possesses housekeeping functions, under starvation conditions it is delivered to the vacuole for degradation by autophagy in a Vac8- and Atg24-dependent manner. We also provide evidence that FAS degradation is essential for survival under nitrogen deprivation. Our results imply that during nitrogen starvation specific proteins are preferentially recruited into autophagosomes.

• PMID: 25605918
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Journal Article | Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Authors

Shpilka T, Welter E, Borovsky N, Amar N, Shimron F, Peleg Y, Elazar Z

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