The Vacuole and Mitochondria Patch (vCLAMP) Protein Vam6 is Crucial for Autophagy in Candida albicans.

Vacuole and mitochondria patches (vCLAMPs) are involved in the stress resistance of yeast, but their exact role in autophagy remains so far unclear. This study, for the first time, investigated the role of the vCLAMP core protein Vam6 in autophagy of Candida albicans. The experiments demonstrated that the deletion of VAM6 led to a growth defect under nitrogen starvation. Also, western blotting revealed that the vam6Δ/Δ mutant attenuated degradation of Atg8 (an autophagy indicator), Lap41 (an indicator of the cytoplasm to vacuole targeting pathway), and Csp37 (a mitophagy indicator). Moreover, the activity of carboxypeptidase Y and the levels of the vacuolar phospholipase Atg15 were significantly decreased in the mutant, which confirmed the defect of autophagy caused by deletion of VAM6. Overall, these results revealed that Vam6 is essential in maintaining the autophagic process under nitrogen starvation, and this provided new insights into the correlation between vCLAMPs and autophagy.