T. Yorimitsu et al., "Endoplasmic reticulum stress triggers autophagy," J Bio Chem, 281:30299-304, 2006. (Cited in 48 papers)
University of Michigan biologist Daniel Klionsky and a group of researchers wanted to see if stressing a yeast cell organelle would initiate autophagy - a degradation process cells use to clear misfolded proteins. Klionsky and his colleagues stressed the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) by disrupting protein folding with chemicals. In doing so the researchers triggered autophagy to clear the misfolded proteins and restore normal ER function.
Around the time this Hot Paper appeared, other groups demonstrated ER stress-inducing autophagy in mammalian cell lines, and went further to identify the mechanisms that translate ER stress to the induction of autophagy.
Since Klionsky's paper, says Xiao-Ming Yin, an experimental pathologist at the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine, other groups have found pathways - such as the PERK, IRE1 and ATF6 pathways - that may ...