title: Fatty acid synthase is preferentially degraded by autophagy upon nitrogen starvation in yeast.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Tomer
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shpilka
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Evelyn
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Welter
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Noam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Borovsky
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Nira
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Amar
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Frida
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Shimron
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: Yoav
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Peleg
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel zvulun.elazar@weizmann.ac.il.
authors.forename: Zvulun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Elazar
mesh_terms: D001343:Autophagy; D064429:Fatty Acid Synthases / Q000378:metabolism*; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000378:metabolism*; D059748:Proteolysis; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000201:enzymology / Q000378:metabolism*; D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D029701:Saccharomyces cerevisiae Proteins; D064429:Fatty Acid Synthases; D009584:Nitrogen
keywords: Atg24; Atg8; fatty acid synthase; protein degradation; selective autophagy