Proteasome autophagy is specifically regulated and requires factors dispensible for general autophagy

ABSTRACT Changing physiological conditions can increase the need for protein degradative capacity in eukaryotic cells. Both the ubiquitin-proteasome system and autophagy contribute to protein degradation. However, proteasomes are also an autophagy substrate. Thus, these processes must be differentially regulated depending on the physiological conditions presented. The signals and molecular mechanisms that govern proteasome autophagy are only partly elucidated. Our data indicate that chemical inhibition of TORC1 with rapamycin induces a bi-phasic response where proteasome levels are upregulated followed by an autophagy-dependent reduction. Surprisingly, several conditions that result in inhibited TORC1 exclusively induce proteasome autophagy (i.e. without any proteasome upregulation), suggesting a convergence of signals upstream of proteasome autophagy under different physiological conditions. Indeed, several conditions that activate general autophagy did not induce proteasome autophagy further distinguishing between proteasome autophagy and general autophagy. Consistent with this, we found that Atg11, the receptor for selective autophagy, and the map kinases Mpk1, Mkk1, and Mkk2, all play a role in autophagy of proteasomes, while they are dispensible for general autophagy. In all, our data provide new insights into the molecular regulation of proteasome autophagy by demonstrating that these complexes are specifically regulated under different autophagy inducing conditions.