Thanks to all collaborators, a fantastic collaboration with the ‪@kraftlabfr.bsky.social‬, several fun retreats & a special thanks to the first authors Mariya, Jeremy, @riccardobabic.bsky.social, and @heaktor.bsky.social

Our study provides insights into the process of initiation during selective autophagy and offers new ideas for developing approaches to selectively degrade unwanted cellular material by autophagy.

3) Experiments using mammalian cell systems reveal striking similarities where FIP200 (Atg11 homologue) clusters on the cargo surface, connecting the phagophore assembly site to the ER. Changing receptor affinity of p62 within condensates resulted in a degradation defect similar to yeast.

2) The low affinity of the receptor for the cargo also allows the initiation hubs to rearrange and establish organelle contact sites necessary to form the pre-autophagosomal structure. Reconstitution of these features allowed us to transform a viral protein expressed in yeast into a neo-cargo.

1) These low affinity interactions are important for the formation of Atg11 condensates at the cargo surface. Atg11 condensates act as initiation hubs to recruit core autophagy machinery proteins such as Atg1 and Atg9.

What happens if you change the physical properties of an autophagic cargo? By altering the low-affinity interaction of autophagic receptors with or within their cargo, we observed a severe degradation defect in budding yeast.

Please share!

Thanks Sascha.

Congrats Mariana!

I am humbled to be a part of this amazing community. Thanks to the entire group, including fantastic colleagues and mentors along the way.

Congrats Yasin! That is fantastic. You are much closer to Frankfurt now 😁