PINK1-Parkin mitophagy

Selective autophagy of damaged mitochondria in human: a scoped project

AI Gene Review · projects/MITOPHAGY · SCOPING · 2026

Bottom line

  • Scoped, not started. No mitophagy module; PINK1 and PRKN are not reviewed.
  • 8 of 14 listed candidates already have reviews made for other projects (mostly Proteostasis).
  • Those reviews make mitophagy core for OPTN, CALCOCO2 and BNIP3L and non-core for SQSTM1.

The pathway

Schematic from the pathway architecture on the project page.

Why this is worth doing

  • The best-characterised mitophagy pathway, with Parkinson's disease (PINK1, PRKN) and ALS (OPTN, TBK1) genetics.
  • Receptors are shared with xenophagy and aggrephagy, so which selective-autophagy process is core is the real curation question.
  • A worm counterpart, CAEEL_MITOPHAGY, is already mature and could be compared ortholog by ortholog.

Where the candidate genes stand

What the existing reviews say about mitophagy

Gene Mitophagy row Evidence Action
OPTN GO:0061734 type 2 mitophagy IMP ACCEPT
CALCOCO2 GO:0000423 mitophagy IMP NEW
SQSTM1 GO:0000423 mitophagy IGI, IBA KEEP_AS_NON_CORE
BNIP3L GO:1901524 regulation of mitophagy IEA ACCEPT
VCP GO:0000423 mitophagy IDA ACCEPT

Next steps

  1. just fetch-gene human PINK1 and PRKN; review them first.
  2. Review BNIP3, FUNDC1, PHB2 and MFN2.
  3. Build a PINK1-Parkin mitophagy module from the reviewed genes, checking against the worm project.

Read more: projects/MITOPHAGY.md · genes/human/OPTN/ · projects/CAEEL_MITOPHAGY.md