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Updated: May 8, 2026

Live Cell Imaging of Early Autophagy Events: Omegasomes and Beyond
Published on: July 27, 2013
The beginning of the end: how scaffolds nucleate autophagosome biogenesis
Robin E Stanley1, Michael J Ragusa2, James H Hurley3
1Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Abstract:
Autophagy is a conserved mechanism that is essential for cell survival in starvation. Moreover, autophagy maintains cellular health by clearing unneeded or harmful materials from cells. Autophagy proceeds by the engulfment of bulk cytosol and organelles by a cup-shaped double-membrane sheet known as the phagophore. The phagophore closes on itself to form the autophagosome, which delivers its contents to the vacuole or lysosome for degradation. A multiprotein complex comprising the protein kinase autophagy-related protein 1 (Atg1) together with Atg13, Atg17, Atg29, and Atg31 (ULK1, ATG13, FIP200, and ATG101 in humans) has a pivotal role in the earliest steps of this process. This review summarizes recent structural and ultrastructural analysis of the earliest step in autophagosome biogenesis and discusses a model in which the Atg1 complex clusters high-curvature vesicles containing the integral membrane protein Atg9, thereby initiating the phagophore.
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