Beclin 1-VPS34 complex – At the Crossroads of Autophagy and Beyond

By Sarah F. Funderburk, Q. Wang, Zhenyu Yue. Trends in Cell Biology, 2010

796 citations recorded by the source corpus.

An increasing body of research on autophagy provides overwhelming evidence for its connection to various biological functions and human diseases. Beclin 1 is the first described mammalian autophagy protein and appears to act as a nexus point between autophagy, endosomal, and perhaps also cell death pathways. Beclin 1 performs these roles as part of a core complex that contains vacuolar sorting protein 34 (VPS34), a class III phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase. The precise mechanism of Beclin 1-mediated regulation of these cellular functions is unclear, but substantial progress has recently been made in identifying new players and their functions in Beclin 1-VSP34 complexes. Here, we review emerging studies, which are beginning to unveil physiological functions for Beclin 1-VPS34 in the central control of autophagic activity and other cellular trafficking events through the formation of distinct Beclin 1-VPS34 protein complexes.

Subfields: Epidemiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f28cfeadfb4e59b1227c30977e789f62f4c3096a

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In Epidemiology

Citations in the corpus

Autophagy-deficient mice develop multiple liver tumors. (2011, background): “However, these factors are not specific for autophagy and are considered to have multiple functions, such as involvement in the endocytic pathway (Funderburk et al. 2010; He and Levine 2010; Thoresen et al. 2010), which has many roles in tumorigenesis (Mosesson et al. 2008).”
Principles and Current Strategies for Targeting Autophagy for Cancer Treatment (2011, background): “Therefore, care must be taken in interpreting results when Vps34 or Beclin1 are pharmacologically or genetically suppressed in autophagy studies.”
The regulation of autophagy – unanswered questions (2011, background): “Jo ur na l o f C el l S ci en ce which functions in autophagy, consists of Atg6 (Vps30), Atg14, Vps34 (the only PtdIns3K in yeast) and Vps15, whereas complex II contains Vps38 instead of Atg14 and functions in the vacuolar protein sorting (Vps) pathway (Cao and Klionsky, 2007; Nakatogawa et al., 200”
Endosome maturation (2011, background): “Together, these form a core complex (Funderburk et al, 2010), which on endosomes associates with a protein called UVRAG (Itakura et al, 2008), an activator of the HOPS complex.”