Establishment of a yeast essential protein conditional-degradation library and screening for autophagy-regulating genes

Macroautophagy/autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved intracellular degradation pathway that relies on vacuoles or lysosomes. Over 40 ATG genes have been identified in yeast cells as participants in various types of autophagy, although these genes are non-essential. While some essential genes involved in autophagy have been identified using temperature-sensitive yeast strains, systematic research on essential genes in autophagy remains lacking. To address this, we established an essential protein conditional degradation library using the auxin-inducible degron (AID) system. By introducing the GFP-Atg8 plasmid, we identified 29 essential yeast genes involved in autophagy, 19 of which had not been previously recognized. In summary, the yeast essential protein conditional degradation library we constructed will serve as a valuable resource for systematically investigating the roles of essential genes in autophagy and other biological functions.