Complex Changes in Membrane Lipids Associated with the Modification of Autophagy in Arabidopsis

Autophagy is a conserved mechanism among eukaryotes that degrades and recycles cytoplasmic components. Autophagy is known to influence the plant metabolome, including lipid content; however, its impact on the plant lipidome is not fully understood, and most studies have analyzed a single or few mutants defective in autophagy. To gain more insight into the effect of autophagy on lipid concentrations and composition, we quantitatively profiled glycerolipids from multiple Arabidopsis thaliana mutants altered in autophagy and compared them with wild-type seedlings under nitrogen replete (+N; normal growth) and nitrogen starvation (−N; autophagy inducing) conditions. Mutants include those in genes of the core autophagy pathway, together with other genes that have been reported to affect autophagy. Using Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization—Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-MS), we imaged the cellular distribution of specific lipids in situ and demonstrated that autophagy and nitrogen treatment did not affect their spatial distribution within Arabidopsis seedling leaves. We observed changes, both increases and decreases, in the relative amounts of different lipid species in the mutants compared to WT both in +N and −N conditions, although more changes were seen in −N conditions. The relative amounts of polyunsaturated and very long chain lipids were significantly reduced in autophagy-disrupted mutants compared to WT plants. Collectively, our results provide additional evidence that autophagy affects plant lipid content and that autophagy likely affects lipid properties such as chain length and unsaturation.