Research Director

Nobuo N. Noda

Microbial Chemistry Research Foundation

Chief Researcher

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Outline

Autophagy is a principal intracellular degradation system through which cells degrade and recycle their own cytoplasmic materials, thereby adapting to the extracellular environments. During autophagy, an organelle termed an autophagosome is de novo synthesized, which sequesters a portion of cytoplasm and delivers it to the lytic compartment, lysosome (vacuole in the case of yeast), where delivered materials are degraded by lysosomal hydrolases. Therefore, the step of autophagosome formation is extremely important in autophagy; however, its moelcular mechanism still remains to be resolved. In this project, we try to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of autophagosome formation by revealing the interactions formed between various proteins and lipids at autophagosome-forming membranes using structural biological techniques.