SUMMARY Autophagy is an important intracellular catabolic mechanism that mediates the degradation of cytoplasmic proteins and organelles. We report a potent small molecule inhibitor of autophagy named “spautin-1” for specific and potent autophagy inhibitor-1. Spautin-1 promotes the degradation of Vps34 PI3 kinase complexes by inhibiting two ubiquitin-specific peptidases, USP10 and USP13, that target the Beclin1 subunit of Vps34 complexes. Beclin1 is a tumor suppressor and frequently monoallelically lost in human cancers. Interestingly, Beclin1 also controls the protein stabilities of USP10 and USP13 by regulating their deubiquitinating activities. Since USP10 mediates the deubiquitination of p53, regulating deubiquitination activity of USP10 and USP13 by Beclin1 provides a mechanism for Beclin1 to control the levels of p53. Our study provides a molecular mechanism involving protein deubiquitination that connects two important tumor suppressors, p53 and Beclin1, and a potent small molecule inhibitor of autophagy as a possible lead compound for developing anticancer drugs.

The common underlying feature of most neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease (AD), prion diseases, Parkinson disease (PD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) involves accumulation of misfolded proteins leading to initiation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and stimulation of the unfolded protein response (UPR). Additionally, ER stress more recently has been implicated in the pathogenesis of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). Autophagy plays an essential role in the clearance of aggregated toxic proteins and degradation of the damaged organelles. There is evidence that autophagy ameliorates ER stress by eliminating accumulated misfolded proteins. Both abnormal UPR and impaired autophagy have been implicated as a causative mechanism in the development of various neurodegenerative diseases. This review highlights recent advances in the field on the role of ER stress and autophagy in AD, prion diseases, PD, ALS and HAND with the involvement of key signaling pathways in these processes and implications for future development of therapeutic strategies.

Cocaine abuse leads to neuroinflammation, which, in turn, contributes to the pathogenesis of neurodegeneration associated with advanced HIV-1 infection. Autophagy plays important roles in both innate and adaptive immune responses. However, the possible functional link between cocaine and autophagy has not been explored before. Herein, we demonstrate that cocaine exposure induced autophagy in both BV-2 and primary rat microglial cells as demonstrated by a dose- and time-dependent induction of autophagy-signature proteins such as BECN1/Beclin 1, ATG5, and MAP1LC3B. These findings were validated wherein cocaine treatment of BV-2 cells resulted in increased formation of puncta in cells expressing either endogenous MAP1LC3B or overexpressing GFP-MAP1LC3B. Specificity of cocaine-induced autophagy was confirmed by treating cells with inhibitors of autophagy (3-MA and wortmannin). Intriguingly, cocaine-mediated induction of autophagy involved upstream activation of 2 ER stress pathways (EIF2AK3- and ERN1-dependent), as evidenced by the ability of the ER stress inhibitor salubrinal to ameliorate cocaine-induced autophagy. In vivo validation of these findings demonstrated increased expression of BECN1, ATG5, and MAP1LC3B-II proteins in cocaine-treated mouse brains compared to untreated animals. Increased autophagy contributes to cocaine-mediated activation of microglia since pretreatment of cells with wortmannin resulted in decreased expression and release of inflammatory factors (TNF, IL1B, IL6, and CCL2) in microglial cells. Taken together, our findings suggest that cocaine exposure results in induction of autophagy that is closely linked with neuroinflammation. Targeting autophagic proteins could thus be considered as a therapeutic strategy for the treatment of cocaine-related neuroinflammation diseases.

Metabolic stress caused by perturbation of receptor tyrosine kinase FLT3 sensitizes cancer cells to autophagy inhibition and leads to excessive activation of chaperone-mediated autophagy, which triggers metabolic catastrophe in cancer cells through the degradation of HK2.

Cai et al. demonstrate that morphine exposure dysregulates synaptic balance in the hippocampus. This effect involves a novel pathway involving ROS, ER stress, and autophagy and can be rescued by PDGF.

Autophagy is an important intracellular catabolic mechanism involved in the removal of misfolded proteins. Atg14L, the mammalian ortholog of Atg14 in yeast and a critical regulator of autophagy, mediates the production PtdIns3P to initiate the formation of autophagosomes. However, it is not clear how Atg14L is regulated. In this study, we demonstrate that ubiquitination and degradation of Atg14L is controlled by ZBTB16-Cullin3-Roc1 E3 ubiquitin ligase complex. Furthermore, we show that a wide range of G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) ligands and agonists regulate the levels of Atg14L through ZBTB16. In addition, we show that the activation of autophagy by pharmacological inhibition of GPCR reduces the accumulation of misfolded proteins and protects against behavior dysfunction in a mouse model of Huntington's disease. Our study demonstrates a common molecular mechanism by which the activation of GPCRs leads to the suppression of autophagy and a pharmacological strategy to activate autophagy in the CNS for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06734.001

Autophagy is a cellular lysosome-dependent catabolic mechanism mediating the turnover of intracellular organelles and long-lived proteins. Dysfunction of autophagy has been implicated in multiple human diseases. Identification of novel autophagy factors in mammalian cells is important for understanding how this complex cellular pathway responds to a broad range of challenges. Here we report that mitochondrial electron transport chain (mETC) complex III plays a role in autophagy induction. We show that antimycin A, a known inhibitor of mETC complex III, can inhibit autophagy. A structural and functional study shows that four close analogs of antimycin A that have no effect on mitochondria inhibition also do not inhibit autophagy; while myxothiazol, another mETC complex III inhibitor with unrelated structure to antimycin A, inhibits autophagy. Additionally, antimycin A and myxothiazol cannot inhibit autophagy in mtDNA-depleted H4 and mtDNA-depleted HeLa cells. These data suggest that antimycin A inhibits autophagy through its inhibitory activity on mETC complex III. Our data suggest that mETC complex III may have a role in mediating autophagy induction.

Vacuolar protein-sorting 34 (Vps34), the catalytic subunit in the class III PtdIns3 (phosphatidylinositol 3) kinase complexes, mediates the production of PtdIns3P, a key intracellular lipid involved in regulating autophagy and receptor degradation. However, the signal transduction pathways by which extracellular signals regulate Vps34 complexes and the downstream cellular mechanisms are not well understood. Here we show that DNA damageactivated mitotic arrest and CDK activation lead to the phosphorylation of Vps34, which provides a signal to promote its ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation mediated by FBXL20 (an F-box protein) and the associated Skp1 (S-phase kinase-associated protein-1)-Cullin1 complex, leading to inhibition of autophagy and receptor endocytosis. Furthermore, we show that the expression of FBXL20 is regulated by p53-dependent transcription. Our study provides a molecular pathway by which DNA damage regulates Vps34 complexes and its downstream mechanisms, including autophagy and receptor endocytosis, through SCF (Skp1-Cul1-F-box)-mediated ubiquitination and degradation. Since the expression of FBXL20 is regulated by p53-dependent transcription, the control of Vps34 ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation by FBXL20 and the associated SCF complex expression provides a novel checkpoint for p53 to regulate autophagy and receptor degradation in DNA damage response.