ULK1 in autophagy: sugar it up.

Autophagy is a highly conserved cellular degradation and recycling process in mammalian cells, which is comprised of three main types: microautophagy, macroautophagy, and chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA). Autophagy plays a housekeeping role in maintaining cellular homeostasis and therefore can cause many human diseases if it is dysregulated. Our recent paper reported that ULK1 (unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 1) is glycosylated at S409/S410 and further revealed the biochemical effect in stabilizing this protein. Abbreviations: CMA: chaperone-mediated autophagy; HNSCCs: head and neck squamous cell carcinomas; HPV: human papillomavirus; O-GlcNAc: O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine; PTM: post-translational modification; ULK1: unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 1.