UC San Diego

Autophagy is a highly conserved degradation pathway which is regulated by the autophagy protein Beclin1. Beclin1 has been reported to be essential for initiation of autophagy. Here, we characterize the roles of Beclin1 and Beclin2 in autophagy and mitophagy. Lack of Beclin1 or Beclin2 did not prevent the initiation of autophagy in cells. However, Beclin1 was found to be important for Parkin-mediated mitophagy, while Beclin2 was dispensable. Our findings suggest that autophagy is functional without Beclin1 or Beclin2, but Beclin1 is required for functional mitophagy.