Translational repression stabilizes messenger RNA of autophagy-related genes

In response to amino acid starvation, autophagy mediates the lysosome-dependent turnover of cytosolic components via autophagosome formation. Despite advances in understanding the molecular basis of autophagy process, the regulatory mechanism remains unclear. Here, we show that repression of protein synthesis stabilizes the messenger RNAs of specific autophagy-related (ATG) genes, increasing their respective half-lives. Further analysis indicated that the stabilization process is attributable to the coding region of the mRNAs. The results suggest a novel mechanism of autophagy regulation by post-transcriptional mRNA stabilization, in which repression of protein synthesis plays a direct role to sustain the autophagy process.