Vacuolar digestion of entire damaged chloroplasts in Arabidopsis thaliana is accomplished by chlorophagy

Abstract

In yeast and mammals, selective vacuolar delivery and degradation of whole mitochondria, or mitophagy, represents an important quality control system and is achieved by a cargo recognition mechanism enabling selective elimination of dysfunctional mitochondria. As photosynthetic organelles that need light for energy production, plant chloroplasts accumulate sunlight-induced damage. Plants have evolved multiple mechanisms to avoid, relieve, or repair chloroplast photodamage. Our recent study showed that vacuolar degradation of entire chloroplasts, termed chlorophagy, is induced to degrade chloroplasts that are collapsed due to photodamage. Our results underscore the involvement of autophagy in the quality control of endosymbiotic, energy-converting organelles in eukaryotes.