Receptor-mediated cargo hitchhiking on bulk autophagy

While the molecular mechanism of autophagy is well studied, the cargoes delivered by autophagy remain incompletely characterized. To examine the selectivity of autophagy cargo, we conducted proteomics on isolated yeast autophagic bodies, which are intermediate structures in the autophagy process. We identify a protein, Hab1, that is highly preferentially delivered to vacuoles. The N-terminal 42 amino acid region of Hab1 contains an amphipathic helix and an Atg8-family interacting motif, both of which are necessary and sufficient for the preferential delivery of Hab1 by autophagy. We find that fusion of this region with a cytosolic protein results in preferential delivery of this protein to the vacuole. Furthermore, attachment of this region to an organelle allows for autophagic delivery in a manner independent of canonical autophagy receptor or scaffold proteins. We propose a novel mode of selective autophagy in which a receptor, in this case Hab1, binds directly to forming isolation membranes during bulk autophagy.