Lipids and membrane-associated proteins in autophagy

Abstract

Autophagy is essential for the maintenance of cellular homeostasis and its dysfunction has been linked to various diseases. Autophagy is a membrane driven process and tightly regulated by membrane-associated proteins. Here, we summarized membrane lipid composition, and membrane-associated proteins relevant to autophagy from a spatiotemporal perspective. In particular, we focused on three important membrane remodeling processes in autophagy, lipid transfer for phagophore elongation, membrane scission for phagophore closure, and autophagosome-lysosome membrane fusion. We discussed the significance of the discoveries in this field and possible avenues to follow for future studies. Finally, we summarized the membrane-associated biochemical techniques and assays used to study membrane properties, with a discussion of their applications in autophagy.

Keywords: ATG2; ESCRT; autophagy; elongation; fusion; lipid transfer; membrane-associated biochemistry assays; membrane-associated proteins; scission.