Building on previous work (Ge et al., 2013), it is shown that the ER-Golgi intermediate compartment is a platform for the production of COPII vesicles as precursor membranes for the lipidation of LC3, which is an essential step in autophagosome biogenesis.
A cell-free biochemical assay for protein lipidation identifies the ER–Golgi intermediate compartment as a key early station in the formation of an autophagosome.
The crystal structure of human WIPI2 bound to the ATG16L1 WIPI2-interacting region, combined with in vitro reconstitution and cellular autophagy assays, shows how the LC3 lipidation machinery is recruited in autophagy initiation.
A genetic approach in Caenorhabditis elegans shows that the cleaved and cytosolic form of the ubiquitin-like protein LGG-1/GABARAP is sufficient for both autophagy and embryonic development.
Daniel J Puleston, Hanlin Zhang ... Anna Katharina Simon
Autophagy is required for CD8+ T cell memory formation; in aged individuals autophagy levels are diminished, and increasing autophagy enhances their CD8+ T cell responses.
Jessica T Chang, Caroline Kumsta ... Malene Hansen
Autophagic flux assays in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans suggest that autophagy decreases during normal aging, whereas long-lived daf-2 and glp-1 mutants maintain autophagic capacity in distinct spatiotemporal-specific manners to extend lifespan.
Andrea KH Stavoe, Pallavi P Gopal ... Erika LF Holzbaur
The dynamic phosphorylation of autophagy component WIPI2B is critical to maintain autophagosome biogenesis in neurons, and ectopic expression of WIPI2B can restore rates of autophagosome biogenesis in aged neurons.