From Christian de Duve to Yoshinori Ohsumi: more to autophagy than just dining at home

Harnett, M. M. , Pineda, M. A. , Latré de Laté, P., Eason, R. J., Besteiro, S., Harnett, W. and Langsley, G. (2017) From Christian de Duve to Yoshinori Ohsumi: more to autophagy than just dining at home. Biomedical Journal, 40(1), pp. 9-22. (doi: 10.1016/j.bj.2016.12.004) (PMID:28411887)

Abstract

Christian de Duve first coined the expression "autophagy" during his seminal work on the discovery of lysosomes, which led to him being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974. The term was adopted to distinguish degradation of intracellular components from the uptake and degradation of extracellular substances that he called "heterophagy". Studies until the 1990s were largely observational/morphological-based until in 1993 Yoshinori Oshumi described a genetic screen in yeast undergoing nitrogen deprivation that led to the isolation of autophagy-defective mutants now better known as ATG (AuTophaGy-related) genes. The screen identified mutants that fell into 15 complementation groups implying that at least 15 genes were involved in the regulation of autophagy in yeast undergoing nutrient deprivation, but today, 41 yeast ATG genes have been described and many (though not all) have orthologues in humans. Attempts to identify the genetic basis of autophagy led to an explosion in its research and it's not surprising that in 2016 Yoshinori Oshumi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Our aim here is not to exhaustively review the ever-expanding autophagy literature (>60 papers per week), but to celebrate Yoshinori Oshumi's Nobel Prize by highlighting just a few aspects that are not normally extensively covered. In an accompanying mini-review we address the role of autophagy in early-diverging eukaryote parasites that like yeast, lack lysosomes and so use a digestive vacuole to degrade autophagosome cargo and also discuss how parasitized host cells react to infection by subverting regulation of autophagy.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: PLdL was supported by a ParaFrap post-doctoral fellowship. MAP is an Arthritis Research UK Career Development Fellow. SB and GL acknowledge support from ANR-11-LABX-0024 and the CNRS (UMR8104); SB acknowledges grant ANR-13-JSV3-0003 and GL acknowledges INSERM (U1016) support.
• Keywords: Autophagy, infection, inflammation, JNK, cAMP-PKA.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Harnett, Professor Margaret and Harnett, Professor William and Pineda, Dr Miguel
• Authors: Harnett, M. M., Pineda, M. A., Latré de Laté, P., Eason, R. J., Besteiro, S., Harnett, W., and Langsley, G.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Infection & Immunity
• Journal Name: Biomedical Journal
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 2319-4170
• ISSN (Online): 2320-2890
• Published Online: 22 March 2017
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2017 Chang Gung University
• First Published: First published in Biomedical Journal 40(1): 9-22
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License