The sphingolipid ceramide is involved in the cellular stress response. Here we demonstrate that ceramide controls macroautophagy, a major lysosomal catabolic pathway. Exogenous C 2 -ceramide stimulates macroautophagy (proteolysis and accumulation of autophagic vacuoles) in the human colon cancer HT-29 cells by increasing the endogenous pool of long chain ceramides as demonstrated by the use of the ceramide synthase inhibitor fumonisin B 1 . Ceramide reverted the interleukin 13-dependent inhibition of macroautophagy by interfering with the activation of protein kinase B. In addition, C 2 -ceramide stimulated the expression of the autophagy gene product beclin 1. Ceramide is also the mediator of the tamoxifen-dependent accumulation of autophagic vacuoles in the human breast cancer MCF-7 cells. Monodansylcadaverine staining and electron microscopy showed that this accumulation was abrogated by myriocin, an inhibitor of de novo synthesis ceramide. The tamoxifen-dependent accumulation of vacuoles was mimicked by 1-phenyl-2-decanoylamino-3-morpholino-1-propanol, an inhibitor of glucosylceramide synthase. 1-Phenyl-2-decanoylamino-3-morpholino-1-propanol, tamoxifen, and C 2 -ceramide stimulated the expression of beclin 1, whereas myriocin antagonized the tamoxifendependent up-regulation. Tamoxifen and C 2 -ceramide interfere with the activation of protein kinase B, whereas myriocin relieved the inhibitory effect of tamoxifen. In conclusion, the control of macroautophagy by ceramide provides a novel function for this lipid mediator in a cell process with major biological outcomes.Macroautophagy or autophagy is an evolutionary conserved lysosomal pathway involved in the turnover of long lived proteins and organelles (1-3). Autophagy starts with the formation of a multilayer membrane-bound autophagosome that sequesters fractions of the cytoplasm (4, 5). In mammalian cells, most of autophagosomes receive inputs from endocytic compartments before fusing with lysosomes where the degradation of the sequestered material is completed (6, 7).The physiological importance of autophagy during starvation has been primarily highlighted in rat liver (8) and then in different cell types (reviewed in Refs. 9 and 10). At the same time, the term autophagic cell death or type II programmed cell death (PCD II) has been introduced (11) to describe a cell death different from apoptosis or type I programmed cell death (PCD I) (reviewed in Refs. 12 and 13). The recent progress made in characterization of the molecular mechanism controlling autophagy has brought a renewal of interest for this process (14). There is now evidence for the role of autophagy during development (15-17), in the life span extension (15,18), and in disease such as cancer (19,20), neurodegenerative disease (21, 22), and myopathies (23,24).A family of autophagy-related genes discovered in yeast and almost integrally conserved in all eucaryotic phyla controls the formation of the autophagosome (25). Two conjugation systems (Atg5p-Atg12p and Atg8p lipidation) are involved in...

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All cellular components are subjected to continuous surveillance by intracellular quality control systems. The major players involved in this quality control are molecular chaperones, which detect the abnormal components, and proteases, which eliminate them from the cell. Malfunctioning of the cellular surveillance systems inexorably leads to cell toxicity, and often cell death, due to the accumulation of unwanted nonfunctional components inside cells. In this work, we review the contribution of the autophagic system to cellular quality control and the consequences that autophagy malfunction has on cellular function. Special emphasis is made on the recently identified role of this system in maintenance of neuronal homeostasis and in the links currently established between alterations in the autophagic system and major neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease.

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