TRAPP复合物与自噬关系的研究进展

转运蛋白颗粒(TRAPP)是一种高度保守的多亚基蛋白复合物，参与囊泡运输、细胞自噬等过程.细胞自噬是真核生物中高度保守的降解和循环通路，在维持细胞稳态和应对环境压力中起着重要作用.近年来，TRAPP复合物与自噬关系的研究较为广泛，研究表明多个TRAPP复合物亚基参与自噬过程，且TRAPP复合物不同亚基的突变或缺失也与多种人类疾病有关.对TRAPP复合物参与调控细胞自噬机制的深入研究有助于了解一些人类疾病的发生和发展.     

多细胞生物自噬的分子机制和生理功能

细胞自噬是真核生物的一种高度保守的由溶酶体介导的降解过程.自噬将胞内物质包裹在双层膜的自噬小体内,运送到溶酶体进行降解再利用以维持细胞的稳态平衡.经过半个多世纪的研究,特别是研究自噬的遗传模型的建立,人们对自噬的分子机制和调控机理已经有了较为深入的了解.目前已经发现了20多个自噬相关基因(ATG基因和EPG基因)参与自噬小体的形成和成熟过程.多种信号通路,如氨基酸缺失、激素刺激等都参与自噬活性的调控.自噬参与生命过程的多个方面,自噬异常与多种人类疾病的发生发展密切相关,如神经退行性疾病、糖尿病、肿瘤等.多细胞生物自噬的分子机制和调控机理的研究对预防和治疗相关疾病有重要意义,并为研发药物提供理论依据和新的靶点.     

细胞自噬与炎症反应相互作用的研究进展

细胞自噬是维持细胞内环境自稳的一种自我保护机制,是由溶酶体介导的降解细胞内受损的蛋白质或者细胞器的代谢过程。细胞自噬与炎症反应密切相关,模式识别受体Toll样受体的激活能够诱导细胞自噬的发生,而细胞自噬又对炎症反应有调控作用。同时细胞自噬与抗感染免疫密切相关,而细胞自噬的缺损是诱发炎症反应和炎症性疾病的一个重要因素。本文简要综述细胞自噬与炎症反应的相互作用,为研究细胞自噬调控炎症反应的机制提供参考。     

稳定表达EGFP-LC3蛋白的HeLa细胞系的构建

自噬是指细胞自身将细胞质蛋白或细胞器经溶酶体降解的一种过程.微管相关蛋白1轻链3(LC3)是自噬的标志蛋白,利用荧光显微镜观察EGFP-LC3荧光蛋白是否聚集成点状是检测自噬的方法之一.首先构建了表达EGFP-LC3蛋白的真核表达质粒,其具有荧光和药物筛选双标签.转染到HeLa细胞中,利用药物初步筛选后,再稀释到96孔板中筛选出有荧光的单细胞克隆,得到稳定表达EGFP-LC3蛋白的HeLa单克隆细胞系.该细胞系在饥饿诱导条件下EGFP-LC3蛋白可聚集成点状,验证了该细胞系能够用于指示自噬,为今后自噬研究奠定了基础.     

牺牲局部、成就整体的细胞自噬——2016年度诺贝尔生理学或医学奖成果简介

 自噬是一种细胞自身成分降解并回收利用的基本过程。日本科学家Yoshinori Ohsumi（大隅良典）因阐明细胞自噬的分子机制和生理功能而获得2016年度诺贝尔生理学或医学奖。这项工作不但为理解机体适应饥饿、感染免疫应答等诸多生化过程打开了一扇窗,也为治疗自噬相关疾病及开发针对自噬的潜在药物靶标奠定了基础。本文解读细胞自噬分子机制的科学背景及内涵,综述自噬相关研究的进展,并探讨其对人类健康的重大意义。     

HIV-1相关蛋白与细胞自噬在HIV相关神经认知障碍中的研究进展

细胞自噬作为真核细胞的一种自我保护机制,能降解细胞内的大分子蛋白质和病原微生物以及一些受损或老化的细胞器,使细胞维持平衡状态,在预防神经退行性疾病及免疫系统疾病等过程中有重要作用.研究发现,HIV-1(Human immunodeficiency virus type-1)能通过各种机制改变细胞自噬的正常功能,以利于自身的复制、感染等,本文就HIV-1的相关蛋白与细胞自噬的相互作用,及其在HIV相关神经认知障碍(HIV-1 associated neurocognitive disorder,HAND)的发生和发展中的重要作用进行综述.     

低氧与运动训练对线粒体自噬影响的研究进展

线粒体是机体主要的供能细胞器,但是氧化损伤等因素会导致线粒体功能失调.研究表明,自噬是线粒体维持自身数量以及质量的动态平衡的主要方式之一.线粒体自噬(mitochondrial autophagy)具有选择性,对受损伤或不需要的线粒体能特异性识别,由自噬体将其包裹并清除.线粒体自噬对维持细胞内环境稳态具有重要意义,是维持整个线粒体网络功能完整性和细胞生存的重要机制之一.运动训练对机体代谢的良性效应可用自噬现象来解释,细胞自噬已成为当前运动科学领域的研究热点.该文主要综述近年来国内外有关低氧与运动训练对线粒体自噬现象影响的研究进展.     

Eca109细胞中自噬模型的建立

目的:在食管鳞癌细胞Eca109中建立自噬模型.方法:按照常规细胞培养方法,将pmcherry-GFP-LC3质粒转染进入Eca109细胞,mcherry为红色荧光蛋白,GFP为绿色荧光蛋白,可示踪自噬体形成.加入浓度为50nmol/L自噬激活剂雷帕霉素,建立自噬模型.采用电镜观察雷帕霉素诱导后细胞中自噬小体的产生,激光共聚焦显微镜观察自噬发展的阶段,并对发生自噬行为的细胞进行计数.结果:雷帕霉素诱导后可见明显的自噬小体,激光共聚焦采图可见自噬细胞数量明显增多(P0.05).结论:1.在Eca109细胞中通过加入自噬诱导剂雷帕霉素成功构建细胞自噬模型;2.细胞自噬模型的建立为研究肿瘤细胞自噬活动的现象和分子调控机制提供了新的实验平台.     

细胞的自噬机制 “禁食”——为了更健康的自己

<正>我们不断老化或者出现病变的细胞就好像是垃圾一样,如果任由垃圾不断堆积,身体健康的细胞将没有办法进行正常的运转。而自噬机制就是帮助清理这些有问题细胞的一种办法。细胞自噬简单来说就是细胞自己吃自己。“自噬”这一机制最早是由比利时化学家克里斯汀·德·迪夫在1963年首次提出的,他与自己的学生拉塞尔·德特一起证实了胰高血糖素引发的肝细胞降解过程中,溶酶体发挥了功能。     

LC3和lamins在细胞核自噬中的研究进展

自噬是细胞内的重要生理机制之一,对细胞来说自噬是一把双刃剑,它曾一度被认为是机体的保护机制,但随着研究的深入,学者发现自噬也可促进肿瘤的生长.由于细胞核在真核生物中的重要性,相关自噬蛋白在核中的大量分布,核自噬在多种疾病的发生发展中起着非常重要的作用.为了全面了解疾病与自噬的关系,人们开始了核自噬方面的探索.本文对近年...     

Ambra1 regulates autophagy and development of the nervous system

Autophagy is a self-degradative process involved both in basal turnover of cellular components and in response to nutrient starvation or organelle damage in a wide range of eukaryotes. During autophagy, portions of the cytoplasm are sequestered by double-membraned vesicles called autophagosomes, and are degraded after fusion with lysosomes for subsequent recycling. In vertebrates, this process acts as a pro-survival or pro-death mechanism in different physiological and pathological conditions, such as neurodegeneration and cancer; however, the roles of autophagy during embryonic development are still largely uncharacterized. Beclin1 (Becn1; coiled-coil, myosin-like BCL2-interacting protein) is a principal regulator in autophagosome formation, and its deficiency results in early embryonic lethality. Here we show that Ambra1 (activating molecule in Beclin1-regulated autophagy), a large, previously unknown protein bearing a WD40 domain at its amino terminus, regulates autophagy and has a crucial role in embryogenesis. We found that Ambra1 is a positive regulator of the Becn1-dependent programme of autophagy, as revealed by its overexpression and by RNA interference experiments in vitro. Notably, Ambra1 functional deficiency in mouse embryos leads to severe neural tube defects associated with autophagy impairment, accumulation of ubiquitinated proteins, unbalanced cell proliferation and excessive apoptotic cell death. In addition to identifying a new and essential element regulating the autophagy programme, our results provide in vivo evidence supporting the existence of a complex interplay between autophagy, cell growth and cell death required for neural development in mammals.     

Autophagy fights disease through cellular self-digestion

Autophagy, or cellular self-digestion, is a cellular pathway involved in protein and organelle degradation, with an astonishing number of connections to human disease and physiology. For example, autophagic dysfunction is associated with cancer, neurodegeneration, microbial infection and ageing. Paradoxically, although autophagy is primarily a protective process for the cell, it can also play a role in cell death. Understanding autophagy may ultimately allow scientists and clinicians to harness this process for the purpose of improving human health.     

HDAC6 rescues neurodegeneration and provides an essential link between autophagy and the UPS

A prominent feature of late-onset neurodegenerative diseases is accumulation of misfolded protein in vulnerable neurons. When levels of misfolded protein overwhelm degradative pathways, the result is cellular toxicity and neurodegeneration. Cellular mechanisms for degrading misfolded protein include the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), the main non-lysosomal degradative pathway for ubiquitinated proteins, and autophagy, a lysosome-mediated degradative pathway. The UPS and autophagy have long been viewed as complementary degradation systems with no point of intersection. This view has been challenged by two observations suggesting an apparent interaction: impairment of the UPS induces autophagy in vitro, and conditional knockout of autophagy in the mouse brain leads to neurodegeneration with ubiquitin-positive pathology. It is not known whether autophagy is strictly a parallel degradation system, or whether it is a compensatory degradation system when the UPS is impaired; furthermore, if there is a compensatory interaction between these systems, the molecular link is not known. Here we show that autophagy acts as a compensatory degradation system when the UPS is impaired in Drosophila melanogaster, and that histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6), a microtubule-associated deacetylase that interacts with polyubiquitinated proteins, is an essential mechanistic link in this compensatory interaction. We found that compensatory autophagy was induced in response to mutations affecting the proteasome and in response to UPS impairment in a fly model of the neurodegenerative disease spinobulbar muscular atrophy. Autophagy compensated for impaired UPS function in an HDAC6-dependent manner. Furthermore, expression of HDAC6 was sufficient to rescue degeneration associated with UPS dysfunction in vivo in an autophagy-dependent manner. This study suggests that impairment of autophagy (for example, associated with ageing or genetic variation) might predispose to neurodegeneration. Morover, these findings suggest that it may be possible to intervene in neurodegeneration by augmenting HDAC6 to enhance autophagy.     

Toll-like receptor signalling in macrophages links the autophagy pathway to phagocytosis

Phagocytosis and autophagy are two ancient, highly conserved processes involved, respectively, in the removal of extracellular organisms and the destruction of organisms in the cytosol. Autophagy, for either metabolic regulation or defence, involves the formation of a double membrane called the autophagosome, which then fuses with lysosomes to degrade the contents, a process that has similarities with phagosome maturation. Toll-like-receptor (TLR) engagement activates a variety of defence mechanisms within phagocytes, including facilitation of phagosome maturation, and also engages autophagy. Therefore we speculated that TLR signalling might link these processes to enhance the function of conventional phagosomes. Here we show that a particle that engages TLRs on a murine macrophage while it is phagocytosed triggers the autophagosome marker LC3 to be rapidly recruited to the phagosome in a manner that depends on the autophagy pathway proteins ATG5 and ATG7; this process is preceded by recruitment of beclin 1 and phosphoinositide-3-OH kinase activity. Translocation of beclin 1 and LC3 to the phagosome was not associated with observable double-membrane structures characteristic of conventional autophagosomes, but was associated with phagosome fusion with lysosomes, leading to rapid acidification and enhanced killing of the ingested organism.     

Suppression of basal autophagy in neural cells causes neurodegenerative disease in mice

Autophagy is an intracellular bulk degradation process through which a portion of the cytoplasm is delivered to lysosomes to be degraded. Although the primary role of autophagy in many organisms is in adaptation to starvation, autophagy is also thought to be important for normal turnover of cytoplasmic contents, particularly in quiescent cells such as neurons. Autophagy may have a protective role against the development of a number of neurodegenerative diseases. Here we report that loss of autophagy causes neurodegeneration even in the absence of any disease-associated mutant proteins. Mice deficient for Atg5 (autophagy-related 5) specifically in neural cells develop progressive deficits in motor function that are accompanied by the accumulation of cytoplasmic inclusion bodies in neurons. In Atg5-/- cells, diffuse, abnormal intracellular proteins accumulate, and then form aggregates and inclusions. These results suggest that the continuous clearance of diffuse cytosolic proteins through basal autophagy is important for preventing the accumulation of abnormal proteins, which can disrupt neural function and ultimately lead to neurodegeneration.     

Investigation of the biological roles of autophagy in appressorium morphogenesis in Magnaporthe oryzae

Magnaporthe oryzae has been used as a primary model organism for investigating fungus-plant interaction. Many researches focused on molecular mechanisms of appressorium formation to restrain this fungal pathogen. Autophagy is a very high conserved process in eukaryotic cells. Recently, autophagy has been considered as a key process in development and differentiation in M. oryzae. In this report, we present and discuss the current state of our knowledge on gene expression in appressorium formation and the progress in autophagy of rice blast fungi.     

Autophagy in immunity and inflammation

Autophagy is an essential, homeostatic process by which cells break down their own components. Perhaps the most primordial function of this lysosomal degradation pathway is adaptation to nutrient deprivation. However, in complex multicellular organisms, the core molecular machinery of autophagy - the 'autophagy proteins' - orchestrates diverse aspects of cellular and organismal responses to other dangerous stimuli such as infection. Recent developments reveal a crucial role for the autophagy pathway and proteins in immunity and inflammation. They balance the beneficial and detrimental effects of immunity and inflammation, and thereby may protect against infectious, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.     

Essential role for Nix in autophagic maturation of erythroid cells

Erythroid cells undergo enucleation and the removal of organelles during terminal differentiation. Although autophagy has been suggested to mediate the elimination of organelles for erythroid maturation, the molecular mechanisms underlying this process remain undefined. Here we report a role for a Bcl-2 family member, Nix (also called Bnip3L), in the regulation of erythroid maturation through mitochondrial autophagy. Nix(-/-) mice developed anaemia with reduced mature erythrocytes and compensatory expansion of erythroid precursors. Erythrocytes in the peripheral blood of Nix(-/-) mice exhibited mitochondrial retention and reduced lifespan in vivo. Although the clearance of ribosomes proceeded normally in the absence of Nix, the entry of mitochondria into autophagosomes for clearance was defective. Deficiency in Nix inhibited the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (DeltaPsi(m)), and treatment with uncoupling chemicals or a BH3 mimetic induced the loss of DeltaPsi(m) and restored the sequestration of mitochondria into autophagosomes in Nix(-/-) erythroid cells. These results suggest that Nix-dependent loss of DeltaPsi(m) is important for targeting the mitochondria into autophagosomes for clearance during erythroid maturation, and interference with this function impairs erythroid maturation and results in anaemia. Our study may also provide insights into molecular mechanisms underlying mitochondrial quality control involving mitochondrial autophagy.     

细胞自噬对拟南芥种子萌发的影响

自噬在植物生长发育过程发挥着至关重要的作用，但是植物中自噬与种子萌发的关系尚不明确。为了探究自噬对种子萌发的影响，通过基因表达检测、蛋白免疫印迹实验和种子萌发速率比较，分析了细胞自噬对拟南芥(Arabidopsis thaliana)种子萌发的影响。研究结果表明细胞自噬在植物种子萌发过程中发挥重要作用:(1)自噬基因的表达在种子萌发过程中明显上调，且ATG8蛋白在种子萌发过程中逐渐积累，表明种子萌发过程中细胞自噬被激活；(2)细胞自噬抑制剂3-methyladenine (3-MA)能够显著地抑制拟南芥野生型种子的萌发，拟南芥自噬突变体种子的萌发速度比野生型种子的慢，表明细胞自噬途径在种子萌发过程中发挥正向调控作用但不是种子萌发所必需的。     

A ubiquitin-like system mediates protein lipidation

Autophagy is a dynamic membrane phenomenon for bulk protein degradation in the lysosome/vacuole. Apg8/Aut7 is an essential factor for autophagy in yeast. We previously found that the carboxy-terminal arginine of nascent Apg8 is removed by Apg4/Aut2 protease, leaving a glycine residue at the C terminus. Apg8 is then converted to a form (Apg8-X) that is tightly bound to the membrane. Here we report a new mode of protein lipidation. Apg8 is covalently conjugated to phosphatidylethanolamine through an amide bond between the C-terminal glycine and the amino group of phosphatidylethanolamine. This lipidation is mediated by a ubiquitination-like system. Apg8 is a ubiquitin-like protein that is activated by an E1 protein, Apg7 (refs 7, 8), and is transferred subsequently to the E2 enzymes Apg3/Aut1 (ref. 9). Apg7 activates two different ubiquitin-like proteins, Apg12 (ref. 10) and Apg8, and assigns them to specific E2 enzymes, Apg10 (ref. 11) and Apg3, respectively. These reactions are necessary for the formation of Apg8-phosphatidylethanolamine. This lipidation has an essential role in membrane dynamics during autophagy.