New aspects of USP30 biology in the regulation of pexophagy

ABSTRACT

Mitochondria and peroxisomes have a number of features in common: they each play interconnected roles in fatty acid and reactive oxygen species (ROS) metabolism and, once damaged, need to be removed by specialized autophagic mechanisms, termed mitophagy and pexophagy, respectively. Both processes can use ubiquitin as an initiating signal but whereas mitophagy has been extensively studied, pexophagy remains rather poorly understood. Our recent work, along with a new study from Kim and colleagues, has shed light on the molecular mechanism of pexophagy and the importance of reversible ubiquitination in its regulation. Collectively, these studies highlight the physiological role of the deubiquitinase USP30 in suppressing the turnover of peroxisomes.

Abbreviations: ROS: reactive oxygen species; DUB: deubiquitinase or deubiquitylase; USP: ubiquitin specific protease; PINK1: PTEN induced kinase 1; CAT: catalase; KO: knock-out; SQSTM1/p62: sequestosome 1; LIR: LC3 interacting region; GFP: green fluorescent protein; RFP: red fluorescent protein; CRISPR: Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palendromic Repeat

KEYWORDS:

• Mitochondria
• Peroxisomes
• Pexophagy
• Ubiquitin
• USP30

Acknowledgments

We thank Joseph Costello and Markus Islinger for critically reading this commentary.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

EM and AK were funded by the Medical Research Council (MR/N00941X/1) and EVR-J was funded through a Michael J Fox Foundation Therapeutic Pipeline project grant (13063). JJ was the recipient of a Parkinson’s UK studentship (H-1502).