Mitochondrial dysfunction has severe cellular consequences and is linked with neurodegenerative diseases and aging. Maintaining a healthy population of mitochondria is thus essential for proper cellular homeostasis. Several strategies have evolved to prevent and limit mitochondria damage, and macroautophagy plays a role in degrading superfluous or severely damaged mitochondria. Selective removal of mitochondria by autophagy (termed mitophagy) has been extensively studied recently in both yeast and mammalian cells. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge of mitophagy. We also compare the molecular process of mitophagy with other types of specific autophagic pathways and discuss its biological importance.

Mitochondria autophagy (mitophagy) is the process of selective degradation of mitochondria that has an important role in mitochondrial quality control. To gain insight into the molecular mechanism of mitophagy, we screened a yeast knockout library for strains that are defective in mitophagy. We found 32 strains that showed a complete or partial block of mitophagy. One of the genes identified, YLR356W, is required for mitophagy, but not for macroautophagy or other types of selective autophagy. The deletion of YLR356W partially inhibits mitophagy during starvation, whereas there is almost complete inhibition at post-log phase. Accordingly, we hypothesize that Ylr356w is required to detect or present aged or dysfunctional mitochondria when cells reach the post-log phase.

Autophagy is a highly conserved degradative process in eukaryotic cells. This process plays an integral role in cellular physiology, and the levels of autophagy must be precisely controlled to prevent cellular dysfunction. The rapamycin-sensitive Tor kinase complex 1 (TORC1) has a major role in regulating the induction of autophagy; however, the regulatory mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, we find that Tap42 and protein phosphatase type 2A (PP2A) are involved in the regulation of autophagy in yeast. Temperature-sensitive mutant alleles of TAP42 revealed that autophagy was induced without inactivation of TORC1. Absence of the Tap42-interacting protein Tip41 abolished autophagy induction in the tap42 mutants, whereas overexpression of Tip41 activated autophagy. Furthermore, inactivation of PP2A stimulated autophagy and overexpression of a catalytic subunit of PP2A blocked rapamycin-induced autophagy. Our data support a model in which autophagy is negatively regulated by the Tap42-PP2A pathway.