Macroautophagy articles from across Nature Portfolio

The health of brain cells is known to depend on functional autophagy, but the details are unclear. Here, the authors perform systematic proteomic profiling of human and mouse neurons, delineating the landscape of autophagy degradation in brain.

A review summarizes how ATG7 is precisely programmed by genetic, transcriptional, and epigenetic modifications in cells and its functions, including the relationship between ATG7 and aging-related diseases.

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) controls the synthesis of lipids and proteins and Ca²⁺ homeostasis, as well as contacting other organelles and the plasma membrane. A study now looks at a process by which this compartment is remodelled in axons during neurogenesis: the lysosomal clearance of ER subdomains, driven by FAM134 and CCPG1 proteins.

Molecular insight into mechanisms that mediate the selective autophagy of lipid droplets (that is, lipophagy) has been lacking. This study identifies spartin, a protein mutated in a complex hereditary spastic paraplegia called Troyer syndrome, as a receptor that targets lipid droplets to the lysosome for degradation.

Lee and colleagues reveal a previously unrecognized population of astrocytes in the aged brain with disrupted proteostatic signaling that generates defects in astrocyte morphology, protein trafficking and synapse maintenance in the aging hippocampus.