Sanae Shoji-Kawata, Rhea Sumpter, Matthew Leveno, Grant R Campbell, Zhongju Zou, Lisa Kinch, Angela D Wilkins, Qihua Sun, Kathrin Pallauf, Donna MacDuff, Carlos Huerta, Herbert W Virgin, J Bernd Helms, Ruud Eerland, Sharon A Tooze, Ramnik Xavier, Deborah J Lenschow, Ai Yamamoto, David King, Olivier Lichtarge, Nick V Grishin, Stephen A Spector, Dora V Kaloyanova, Beth Levine
The lysosomal degradation pathway of autophagy has a crucial role in defence against infection, neurodegenerative disorders, cancer and ageing. Accordingly, agents that induce autophagy may have broad therapeutic applications. One approach to developing such agents is to exploit autophagy manipulation strategies used by microbial virulence factors. Here we show that a peptide, Tat-beclin 1-derived from a region of the autophagy protein, beclin 1, which binds human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 Nef-is a potent inducer of autophagy, and interacts with a newly identified negative regulator of autophagy, GAPR-1 (also called GLIPR2)...
February 14, 2013: Nature