2020.12.10
Amino Acid Recycling in Cells: Autophagy Helps Cells Adapt to Changing Conditions
Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), Japan, have shown for the first time how specific metabolites produced by autophagy are utilized by a cell. They discovered that in budding yeast adapting to respiratory growth, autophagy—an intracellular recycling system—recycles the amino acid serine to trigger growth through mitochondrial one-carbon metabolism. This study shows how the recycling function of autophagy is crucial for adaptation to fluctuating environmental conditions.
