ATG8 delipidation is not universally critical for autophagy in plants

Yong Zou, Jonas A. Ohlsson, Sanjana Holla, Igor Sabljić, Jia Xuan Leong, Florentine Ballhaus, Melanie Krebs, Karin Schumacher, Panagiotis N. Moschou, Simon Stael, Suayib Üstün, Yasin Dagdas, Peter V. Bozhkov and Elena A. Minina ()
Additional contact information
Yong Zou: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Jonas A. Ohlsson: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Sanjana Holla: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Igor Sabljić: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Jia Xuan Leong: Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen
Florentine Ballhaus: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Melanie Krebs: Heidelberg University
Karin Schumacher: Heidelberg University
Panagiotis N. Moschou: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Simon Stael: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Suayib Üstün: Ruhr-University Bochum
Yasin Dagdas: Austrian Academy of Sciences
Peter V. Bozhkov: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology
Elena A. Minina: Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Linnean Center for Plant Biology

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract Intracellular recycling via autophagy is governed by post-translational modifications of the autophagy-related (ATG) proteins. One notable example is ATG4-dependent delipidation of ATG8, a process that plays critical but distinct roles in autophagosome formation in yeast and mammals. Here, we aim to elucidate the specific contribution of this process to autophagosome formation in species representative of evolutionarily distant green plant lineages: unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, with a relatively simple set of ATG genes, and a vascular plant Arabidopsis thaliana, harboring expanded ATG gene families. Remarkably, the more complex autophagy machinery of Arabidopsis renders ATG8 delipidation entirely dispensable for the maturation of autophagosomes, autophagic flux, and related stress tolerance; whereas autophagy in Chlamydomonas strictly depends on the ATG4-mediated delipidation of ATG8. Importantly, we also demonstrate the distinct impact of different Arabidopsis ATG8 orthologs on autophagosome formation, especially prevalent under nitrogen depletion, providing new insight into potential drivers behind the expansion of the ATG8 family in higher plants. Our findings underscore the evolutionary diversification of the molecular mechanism governing the maturation of autophagosomes in eukaryotic lineages and highlight how this conserved pathway is tailored to diverse organisms.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55754-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-55754-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55754-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().