The Mitochondrion and the Autophagosome: A Conversation
Like a hapless patient
Etherized upon the table
I can pump no more protons
My membrane’s gone unstable
I’d give a mole of ATP
To everyone in town
If my synthetase had not just died
And my transport chain shut down
Oh useless mitochondrion
Prepare to be sequestered
The genome by free radicals
Does not wish to be pestered
My birth from tiny vesicles
Is at a locus called the PAS
I grow into the phagophore
To engulf your sorry ass
Autophagosome ungrateful
Whence came the ATP
To synthesize your coating proteins
And your PI3P
Call off your ligases feral
Your Atg17 and 1
Go gobble up some ribosomes
And call me when you’re done
Your sad pathetic pleading
Moves me not a nanometer
When my organellar lunch is through
The cytoplasm will be neater
I’ll embrace your outer membrane
To the lysosome we’ll run
My SNAREs will spring their final trap
Your time on earth is done