4p1w

Publication Abstract from PubMed

Assembly of the preautophagosomal structure (PAS) is essential for autophagy initiation in yeast. Starvation-induced dephosphorylation of Atg13 is required for the formation of the Atg1-Atg13-Atg17-Atg29-Atg31 complex (Atg1 complex), a prerequisite for PAS assembly. However, molecular details underlying these events have not been established. Here we studied the interactions of yeast Atg13 with Atg1 and Atg17 by X-ray crystallography. Atg13 binds tandem microtubule interacting and transport domains in Atg1, using an elongated helix-loop-helix region. Atg13 also binds Atg17, using a short region, thereby bridging Atg1 and Atg17 and leading to Atg1-complex formation. Dephosphorylation of specific serines in Atg13 enhanced its interaction with not only Atg1 but also Atg17. These observations update the autophagy-initiation model as follows: upon starvation, dephosphorylated Atg13 binds both Atg1 and Atg17, and this promotes PAS assembly and autophagy progression.

Structural basis of starvation-induced assembly of the autophagy initiation complex.,Fujioka Y, Suzuki SW, Yamamoto H, Kondo-Kakuta C, Kimura Y, Hirano H, Akada R, Inagaki F, Ohsumi Y, Noda NN Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2014 May 4. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.2822. PMID:24793651^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.