Regulation and Physiology of Autophagy Induced by Glucose Starvation “The role of autophagy for the degradation of intracellular mannosyl glycan in yeast”

Abstract

Autophagy is a conserved degradation pathway driven by the sequestration of various cytoplasmic components into the vacuoles/lysosomes in eukaryotic cells. Autophagy is known to play an important role in cellular homeostasis by eliminating excess/damaged organelles or by providing amino acids during nutrition starvation. Several studies have suggested that dysregulation of autophagy causes physiological dysfunction in both yeast and mammals. It has been reported that the magnitude of autophagy is strongly enhanced by starvation of various nutrition sources, such as nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus. However, the regulatory mechanism and physiology of autophagy induced by each nutritional shortage—with the exception of nitrogen starvation—have been largely unclear. In this review, I focus on recent studies of the regulation and physiology of autophagy induced by glucose (or carbon source) starvation, as well as the historical background of autophagy study in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Our recent findings indicate that autophagy plays a role in facilitating degradation of the intracellular mannosyl glycan during glucose starvation in budding yeast.