Faculty Bibliography

The ability of cells to renew their intracellular components and get rid of undesired or altered molecules decreases with age. Failure of autophagy is considered one of the main reasons for the build up of damaged components in the tissues of old organisms. We have recently shown that, declined activity of chaperone-mediated autophagy, a selective type of autophagy particularly impaired in aging, increases cell's vulnerability to stressors. This finding supports that, added to its role in cellular clean up, chaperone-mediated autophagy is an essential component of the cellular response to stress. Failure to perform this function with age could underlie the inability of old cells to adapt to stress conditions, and explain the accelerated course of some protein conformational disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, as affected individuals age.

Juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis is caused by mutation of a novel, endosomal/lysosomal membrane protein encoded by CLN3. The observation that the mitochondrial ATPase subunit c protein accumulates in this disease suggests that autophagy, a pathway that regulates mitochondrial turnover, may be disrupted. To test this hypothesis, we examined the autophagic pathway in Cln3(Deltaex7/8) knock-in mice and CbCln3(Deltaex7/8) cerebellar cells, accurate genetic models of juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis. In homozygous knock-in mice, we found that the autophagy marker LC3-II was increased, and mammalian target of rapamycin was down-regulated. Moreover, isolated autophagic vacuoles and lysosomes from homozygous knock-in mice were less mature in their ultrastructural morphology than the wild-type organelles, and subunit c accumulated in autophagic vacuoles. Intriguingly, we also observed subunit c accumulation in autophagic vacuoles in normal aging mice. Upon further investigation of the autophagic pathway in homozygous knock-in cerebellar cells, we found that LC3-positive vesicles were altered and overlap of endocytic and lysosomal dyes was reduced when autophagy was stimulated, compared with wildtype cells. Surprisingly, however, stimulation of autophagy did not significantly impact cell survival, but inhibition of autophagy led to cell death. Together these observations suggest that autophagy is disrupted in juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis, likely at the level of autophagic vacuolar maturation, and that activation of autophagy may be a prosurvival feedback response in the disease process.

Chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) is a selective pathway for the degradation of cytosolic proteins in lysosomes. CMA declines with age because of a decrease in the levels of lysosome-associated membrane protein (LAMP) type 2A, a lysosomal receptor for this pathway. We have selectively blocked the expression of LAMP-2A in mouse fibroblasts in culture and analyzed the cellular consequences of reduced CMA activity. CMA-defective cells maintain normal rates of long-lived protein degradation by up-regulating macroautophagy, the major form of autophagy. Constitutive up-regulation of macroautophagy is unable, however, to compensate for all CMA functions. Thus, CMA-defective cells are more sensitive to stressors, suggesting that, although protein turnover is maintained, the selectivity of CMA is necessary as part of the cellular response to stress. Our results also denote the existence of cross-talk among different forms of autophagy.