Abstract
Ribosomes are abundant cellular machines1,2 that are regulated by assembly, supernumerary subunit turnover and nascent chain quality control mechanisms1,2,3,4,5. Moreover, nitrogen starvation in yeast has been reported to promote selective ribosome delivery to the vacuole in an autophagy conjugation system dependent manner, a process called ‘ribophagy’6,7. However, whether ribophagy in mammals is selective or regulated is unclear. Using Ribo–Keima flux reporters, we find that starvation or mTOR inhibition promotes VPS34-dependent ribophagic flux, which, unlike yeast, is largely independent of ATG8 conjugation and occurs concomitantly with other cytosolic protein autophagic flux reporters8,9. Ribophagic flux was not induced upon inhibition of translational elongation or nascent chain uncoupling, but was induced in a comparatively selective manner under proteotoxic stress induced by arsenite10 or chromosome mis-segregation11, dependent upon VPS34 and ATG8 conjugation. Unexpectedly, agents typically used to induce selective autophagy also promoted increased ribosome and cytosolic protein reporter flux, suggesting significant bulk or ‘bystander’ autophagy during what is often considered selective autophagy12,13. These results emphasize the importance of monitoring non-specific cargo flux when assessing selective autophagy pathways.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants R37NS083524 and RO1GM095567 to J.W.H.). The authors acknowledge the Nikon Imaging Center and the Imaging and Data Analysis Core (Harvard Medical School) for imaging assistance.
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J.W.H. and H.A. conceived the study. H.A. performed all experiments. H.A. and J.W.H. analysed the data and wrote the paper.
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Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figures 1–6, Legends
Supplementary Table 1
Sequences of guide RNAs used for CRISPR tagging and knock-out, and primers for genotyping and next-generation sequencing.
Supplementary Table 2
Statistics Source Data. The source data for statistical analyses of Figs. 2b, 2f-h, 3b, 4b, 4d-e, 4g, 4l, 5e-f, and Supplemental Figs. 2j, 3a, 5c, and 5h.
Supplementary Table 3
Information of antibodies used in the study.
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An, H., Harper, J.W. Systematic analysis of ribophagy in human cells reveals bystander flux during selective autophagy. Nat Cell Biol 20, 135–143 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-017-0007-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-017-0007-x