AUTACs

Autophagy-targeting chimeras (AUTACs) contain a guanine tag and a specific binder of an intracellular target of interest. AUTACs both downregulated cytosolic proteins and promoted targeted mitochondrial turnover via mitophagy. Mitochondria-targeted AUTAC (mito-AUTAC) treatment significantly improved mitochondrial activities in Down syndrome (DS)-derived fibroblast cells. This AUTAC technology may hold promise as the first autophagy-inducing agent with cargo specificity.