Research

Hormonal

Acute exercise induces mitophagy in skeletal muscle via an AMPK-dependent phosphorylation of Ulk1 at Serine 555, which is required for targeting damaged mitochondria to lysosomes.

Regular exercise triggers a specific cellular cleanup process (mitophagy) that removes damaged mitochondria. This process is driven by the AMPK-Ulk1 signaling pathway. To ensure this cleanup happens, consistent aerobic exercise is required to activate AMPK, which then phosphorylates Ulk1 to target damaged organelles for degradation.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
These findings provide direct evidence of exercise-induced mitophagy and demonstrate the importance of Ampk-Ulk1 signaling in skeletal muscle.
Rhianna C. Laker et al. · Nature Communications · 2017

Why this rating

High-quality mechanistic evidence using transgenic mouse models (dominant-negative and constitutively active AMPK, Ulk1 knockout) with direct visualization of mitophagy.

Source

Ampk phosphorylation of Ulk1 is required for targeting of mitochondria to lysosomes in exercise-induced mitophagy

Rhianna C. Laker et al. · Nature Communications · 2017

DOI 10.1038/s41467-017-00520-9

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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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