PACSIN1 is indispensable for amphisome-lysosome fusion during basal autophagy and subsets of selective autophagy

PLoS Genet. 2022 Jun 30;18(6):e1010264. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010264. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Abstract

Autophagy is an indispensable process that degrades cytoplasmic materials to maintain cellular homeostasis. During autophagy, double-membrane autophagosomes surround cytoplasmic materials and either fuse with endosomes (called amphisomes) and then lysosomes, or directly fuse with lysosomes, in both cases generating autolysosomes that degrade their contents by lysosomal hydrolases. However, it remains unclear if there are specific mechanisms and/or conditions which distinguish these alternate routes. Here, we identified PACSIN1 as a novel autophagy regulator. PACSIN1 deletion markedly decreased autophagic activity under basal nutrient-rich conditions but not starvation conditions, and led to amphisome accumulation as demonstrated by electron microscopic and co-localization analysis, indicating inhibition of lysosome fusion. PACSIN1 interacted with SNAP29, an autophagic SNARE, and was required for proper assembly of the STX17 and YKT6 complexes. Moreover, PACSIN1 was required for lysophagy, aggrephagy but not mitophagy, suggesting cargo-specific fusion mechanisms. In C. elegans, deletion of sdpn-1, a homolog of PACSINs, inhibited basal autophagy and impaired clearance of aggregated protein, implying a conserved role of PACSIN1. Taken together, our results demonstrate the amphisome-lysosome fusion process is preferentially regulated in response to nutrient state and stress, and PACSIN1 is a key to specificity during autophagy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Autophagosomes / metabolism
  • Autophagy / genetics
  • Caenorhabditis elegans* / genetics
  • Caenorhabditis elegans* / metabolism
  • Lysosomes / metabolism
  • Macroautophagy* / genetics
  • SNARE Proteins / metabolism

Substances

  • SNARE Proteins

Grants and funding

T.Y. is supported by JST CREST (grant no. JPMJCR17H6), AMED (grant no. JP21gm5010001), and the Takeda Science Foundation. S.N. is supported by AMED-PRIME (20gm6110003h0004), MEXT KAKENHI, a Grant-in-Aid for Transformative Research Areas B (21H05145), JSPS KAKENHI (21H02428, 19K22429), the Senri Life Science Foundation, the Takeda Science Foundation, the Nakajima Foundation, the MSD Life Science Foundation, the Astellas Foundation for Research on Metabolic Disorders, the Mochida Memorial Foundation for Medical and Pharmaceutical Research, the Uehara Memorial Foundation, the NOVARTIS Foundation (Japan) for the Promotion of Science and the Mitsubishi Foundation, Research Grants in the Natural Sciences. S.S. is supported by JSPS KAKENHI 20H03252. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.