Abstract
Autophagy has long been viewed as a process to remove long-lived or misfolded protein aggregates and aging and damaged organelles. Our study identified a previously unknown function of autophagy in suppression of Wnt signaling. A signaling protein, Dishevelled (Dvl), can be degraded via the autophagy pathway upon starvation. In this selective degradation, p62/sequestosome-1 binds to ubiquitinated Dvl proteins and promotes Dvl aggregation. Intriguingly, LC3 can also directly interact with Dvl. The studies on the mechanism for autophagic clearance of Dishevelled led to several interesting findings.