Autophagy-Associated Protein SmATG12 Is Required for Fruiting-Body Formation in the Filamentous Ascomycete Sordaria macrospora
2016 | journal article. A publication with affiliation to the University of Göttingen.
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Autophagy-Associated Protein SmATG12 Is Required for Fruiting-Body Formation in the Filamentous Ascomycete Sordaria macrospora
Werner, A.; Herzog, B.; Frey, S. & Poeggeler, S. (2016)
PLoS ONE, 11(6) art. e0157960. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0157960
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Details
- Authors
- Werner, Antonia; Herzog, Britta; Frey, Stefan; Poeggeler, Stefanie
- Abstract
- In filamentous fungi, autophagy functions as a catabolic mechanism to overcome starvation and to control diverse developmental processes under normal nutritional conditions. Autophagy involves the formation of double-membrane vesicles, termed autophagosomes that engulf cellular components and bring about their degradation via fusion with vacuoles. Two ubiquitin-like (UBL) conjugation systems are essential for the expansion of the autophagosomal membrane: the UBL protein ATG8 is conjugated to the lipid phosphatidylethanolamine and the UBL protein ATG12 is coupled to ATG5. We recently showed that in the homothallic ascomycete Sordaria macrospora autophagy-related genes encoding components of the conjugation systems are required for fruiting-body development and/or are essential for viability. In the present work, we cloned and characterized the S. macrospora (Sm)atg12 gene. Two-hybrid analysis revealed that SmATG12 can interact with SmATG7 and SmATG3. To examine its role in S. macrospora, we replaced the open reading frame of Smatg12 with a hygromycin resistance cassette and generated a homokaryotic Delta Smatg12 knockout strain, which displayed slower vegetative growth under nutrient starvation conditions and was unable to form fruiting bodies. In the hyphae of S. macrospora EGFP-labeled SmATG12 was detected in the cytoplasm and as punctate structures presumed to be phagophores or phagophore assembly sites. Delivery of EGFP-labelled SmATG8 to the vacuole was entirely dependent on SmATG12.
- Issue Date
- 2016
- Status
- published
- Publisher
- Public Library Science
- Journal
- PLoS ONE
- ISSN
- 1932-6203
- Sponsor
- Open-Access Publikationsfonds 2016
Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2016