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Updated: Apr 19, 2026

Tuning Degradation to Achieve Specific and Efficient Protein Depletion
Published on: July 20, 2019
Autophagy mediates nonselective RNA degradation in starving yeast
Evelyn Welter1, Zvulun Elazar1
1Department of Biological Chemistry, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Abstract:
During nitrogen starvation, a nonselective bulk degradation of cytosolic proteins and organelles including ribosomes, termed macro‐autophagy (hereafter termed autophagy), is induced. The precise mechanism of RNA degradation by this pathway has not been yet elucidated. In this issue of the The EMBO Journal, Huang et al characterize an autophagy‐dependent RNA catabolism in yeast and identify the enzymes responsible for the degradation process.
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