Interrelationships among Atg proteins during autophagy in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Macroautophagy is a bulk degradation process induced by nutrient starvation in eukaryotic cells. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, 16 ATG genes are essential for autophagosome formation. Recently, we demonstrated that these ATG genes can be classified into three groups on the basis of localization of GFP-Atg8p/Aut7p and Atg5p/Apg5p-GFP under nutrient-rich conditions. In this study, we analysed the intracellular localization of GFP-Atg8p, an autophagosome marker, in atg mutants under autophagy-inducing conditions; the localization of GFP-Atg8p exhibited several distinct patterns. Subsequent analyses revealed epistatic interrelationships among Atg proteins during the process of autophagosome formation. Copyright (c) 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.