Interactive autophagy: Monitoring a novel form of selective autophagy by macroscopic observations

Abstract

Traditional lectures and cookbook laboratory exercises are today’s standard tools in scientific teaching and learning. However, these conventional methods are suboptimal. Combining active learning techniques with physical experiences can improve educational success significantly. Still, hands-on material which supports active and physical teaching concepts is rare. Here, we introduce an interactive, performance-based method. As an example, we studied autophagosome formation. We observed assembly of the phagophore by membrane fusion, cargo isolation by bending the phagophore and membrane scission. We extracted characteristic time scales of autophagosome formation. Moreover, we observed capturing the autophagic cargo within a single membrane for the first time. In this chapter, we provide an easy tool to engage participants in the process of scientific perception. We are convinced that “hands-on” experiments and interactive analyses will encourage students to participate more actively in classes and thus, will improve learning. Moreover, we anticipate that the approach enhances translation of scientific concepts between different fields by providing scientists with a fresh view on, e.g., membrane-bound processes and can improve communication of science to the public.