Lipid Modulation of LC3/GABARAP-Mediated Autophagosomal Elongation

Abstract

Autophagy, an important catabolic pathway involved in a broad spectrum of human diseases, implies the formation of double-membrane structures called autophagosomes (AP) which engulf material to be degraded in lytic compartments. How AP form, especially how the membrane expands and eventually closes upon itself is an area of intense research. Ubiquitin-like ATG8 has been related to both membrane expansion and membrane fusion, but the underlying molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. Here we used two minimal reconstituted systems (enzymatic and chemical conjugation) to compare the ability of human ATG8 homologues (LC3, GABARAP and GATE-16) to mediate membrane fusion. We found that both enzymatically- and chemically-lipidated forms of GATE-16 and GABARAP proteins promote extensive membrane tethering and fusion, whereas lipidated LC3 does so to a much lesser extent. Moreover, we characterize the GATE-16/GABARAP-mediated membrane fusion as a phenomenon of full membrane fusion, independently demonstrating vesicle aggregation, intervesicular lipid mixing and intervesicular mixing of aqueous content, in the absence of vesicular content leakage. Multiple fusion events give rise to large vesicles, as seen by cryo-EM observations. We also show that both vesicle diameter and selected curvature-inducing lipids (cardiolipin, diacylglycerol and lyso-phosphatidylcholine) can modulate the fusion process, smaller vesicle diameters and negative intrinsic curvature lipids (cardiolipin, diacylglycerol) facilitating fusion. These results strongly support the hypothesis of a highly bent structural fusion intermediate (“stalk”) during AP biogenesis and add to the growing body of evidence that identifies lipids as important regulators of autophagy.