Protein aggregates and damaged organelles are tagged with ubiquitin chains to trigger selective autophagy. To initiate mitophagy, the ubiquitin kinase PINK1 phosphorylates ubiquitin to activate the ubiquitin ligase parkin, which builds ubiquitin chains on mitochondrial outer membrane proteins, where they act to recruit autophagy receptors. Using genome editing to knockout five autophagy receptors in HeLa cells, here we show that two receptors previously linked to xenophagy, NDP52 and optineurin, are the primary receptors for PINK1- and parkin-mediated mitophagy. PINK1 recruits NDP52 and optineurin, but not p62, to mitochondria to activate mitophagy directly, independently of parkin. Once recruited to mitochondria, NDP52 and optineurin recruit the autophagy factors ULK1, DFCP1 and WIPI1 to focal spots proximal to mitochondria, revealing a function for these autophagy receptors upstream of LC3. This supports a new model in which PINK1-generated phospho-ubiquitin serves as the autophagy signal on mitochondria, and parkin then acts to amplify this signal. This work also suggests direct and broader roles for ubiquitin phosphorylation in other autophagy pathways. The PINK1 ubiquitin kinase is shown to recruit the two autophagy receptors NDP52 and OPTN to mitochondria to activate mitophagy directly, independently of the ubiquitin ligase parkin; once recruited to mitochondria, NDP52 and OPTN recruit autophagy initiation components, and parkin may amplify the phospho-ubiquitin signal generated by PINK1, resulting in robust autophagy induction. As in other forms of selective autophagy, during mitophagy the damaged cargo — the mitochondrion — is tagged with ubiquitin chains for recognition and subsequent degradation. Specifically, the enzyme PINK1 phosphorylates ubiquitin as part of the process to activate the ubiquitin ligase enzyme parkin. Consequently, parkin can build ubiquitin chains on mitochondrial outer membrane proteins to recruit autophagy receptors. Richard Youle and colleagues report an additional layer of regulatory complexity in this pathway, with a cellular role for phosphorylated ubiquitin. Using genome editing to knockout multiple autophagy receptors, the authors find that PINK1 recruits only two such receptors, NDP52 and optineurin, to mitochondria to directly activate mitophagy, independent of parkin. NDP52 and optineurin then recruit other autophagy components. These observations call for a revision of the current model of the role of parkin in mitophagy, suggesting that it amplifies the phospho-ubiquitin signal generated by PINK1 to signal autophagy.

The ubiquitin kinase PINK1 recruits autophagy receptors to induce mitophagy