Autophagy is stimulated by stress conditions and needs to be precisely tuned to ensure cellular homeostasis and organismal development and health. The kinase mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) forms the enzymatic core of the highly conserved mTOR complexes mTORC1 and mTORC2. mTORC1 is a key inhibitor of autophagy, yet the function of mTORC2 in autophagy is controversial. We here show that inactivation of mTORC2 and its direct target serum- and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase 1 (SGK-1) potently induces autophagy and the autophagic degradation of mitochondria in C. elegans. Enhanced autophagy in mTORC2- or SGK-1-deficient animals contributes to their developmental and reproductive defects and is independent of the canonical SGK-1 effector DAF-16/FOXO. Importantly, we find that inactivation of mTORC2-SGK-1 signaling impairs mitochondrial homeostasis and triggers an increased release of mitochondria-derived reactive oxygen species (mtROS) to induce autophagy. Thus, mitochondrial stress couples reduced mTORC2 activity to enhanced autophagic turnover.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.09.072 | DOI Listing |
Cell Rep
January 2025
Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; Integrative Program for Biological and Genome Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; Department of Biology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; Department of Cell Biology and Physiology, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA. Electronic address:
Organisms allocate energetic resources between essential cellular processes to maintain homeostasis and, in turn, maximize fitness. The nutritional regulators of energy homeostasis have been studied in detail; however, how developmental signals might impinge on these pathways to govern metabolism is poorly understood. Here, we identify a non-canonical role for Hedgehog (Hh), a classic regulator of development, in maintaining intestinal lipid homeostasis in Caenorhabditis elegans.
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December 2024
Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Sevilla (US), 41012 Sevilla, Spain.
Autophagy is a catabolic process involved in different cellular functions. However, the molecular pathways governing its potential roles in different cell types remain poorly understood. We investigated the role of autophagy in the context of proteotoxic stress in two central nervous system cell types: the microglia-like cell line BV2 and the neuronal-like cell line N2a.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell Death Discov
December 2024
Department of Cardiology and Atrial Fibrillation Center, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
Deptor knockout mice were constructed by crossing Deptor Floxp3 mice with myh6 Cre mice, establishing a myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) model. Deptor knockout mice exhibited significantly increased myocardial infarction size and increased myocardial apoptosis in vivo. ELISA analysis indicated that the expression of CK-MB, LDH, and CtnT/I was significantly higher in the Deptor knockout mice.
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December 2024
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, 7-5-1 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-0017, Japan.
The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), a serine/threonine kinase, promotes cell growth and inhibits autophagy. The following two complexes contain mTOR: mTORC1 with the regulatory associated protein of mTOR (RAPTOR) and mTORC2 with the rapamycin-insensitive companion of mTOR (RICTOR). The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway is important in the intervertebral disk, which is the largest avascular, hypoxic, low-nutrient organ in the body.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt Immunopharmacol
January 2025
Department of Orthopedics, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430030, China. Electronic address:
The most common joint disease in the elderly is osteoarthritis (OA), which is characterized by synovitis, cartilage degeneration, and osteophytes, for which there are currently no effective therapies. Chondrocytes, responsible for extracellular matrix (ECM) synthesis and degradation, undergo changes in OA, leading to ECM disruption and disease progression. There is no clear role for the Mechanistic target of rapamycin complex 2 (mTORC2) in OA, but it is known to regulate cellular functions, such as proliferation, metabolism, motility, and apoptosis.
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