Autophagy is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism in eukaryotic cells for the bulk degradation of organelles. In yeast, this process helps to maintain cell viability by recycling nutrients during periods of starvation. Higher organisms mobilize autophagy in a wide variety of cellular, developmental, and disease contexts, including programmed cell death, the response to invading pathogens, and several human muscular and neurodegenerative disorders. Furthermore, the autophagy gene Beclin 1 is deleted in a large percentage of sporadic breast and ovarian cancers. Although the basic cellular phenotype is well characterized, and some conserved molecular components have been identified, there is little known about the regulation of autophagy. Insulin and Tor signaling play critical roles in suppressing autophagy induction. However, the molecular link between these pathways and the autophagic machinery is a mystery. My goal is to use a primary cell culture system, and the powerful genetics of Drosophila, to identify new components of the autophagy pathway.
The specific aims and experimental design are as follows: (1) Establish an assay for the induction and detection of autophagy in cultured Drosophila myocytes. Atg8- GFP and lysotracker expression and localization will be monitored in cells treated with varying levels of steroid hormones and/or rapamycin. The treatments will be optimized for the subsequent screen. (2) Conduct an RNAi-based screen for genes involved in autophagy induction in the cultured cells. Cells expressing Atg8-GFP will be bathed in double-stranded RNAs to knockdown specific genes. Following hormone and/or rapamycin treatment, autophagosome formation will be assayed by Atg8-GFP localization and expression. (3) in vivo validation of screen hits in both muscle and fat body using a high quality transgenic RNAi library developed in the Perrimon lab. RNAi hairpins targeting selected hits will be expressed specifically in larval muscle and fat-body using the Gal4/UAS system, and the formation of autophagosomes assayed by Atg8- GFP and lysotracker. These studies will provide a comprehensive, genome-wide analysis of autophagy in Drosophila. Identification of genes that participate in Drosophila muscle cell autophagy will provide insights into the pathology of human muscle wasting and muscular disorders that exhibit excessive autophagy ? ? ?
| Zirin, Jonathan; Nieuwenhuis, Joppe; Samsonova, Anastasia et al. (2015) Regulators of autophagosome formation in Drosophila muscles. PLoS Genet 11:e1005006 |
| Zirin, Jonathan; Cheng, Daojun; Dhanyasi, Nagaraju et al. (2013) Ecdysone signaling at metamorphosis triggers apoptosis of Drosophila abdominal muscles. Dev Biol 383:275-84 |
| Perrimon, Norbert; Zirin, Jonathan; Bai, Jianwu (2011) Primary cell cultures from Drosophila gastrula embryos. J Vis Exp : |
