Abstract: | The antioxidant N-acetyl-l-cysteine prevented the
autophagy-dependent delivery of mitochondria to the vacuoles, as examined by
fluorescence microscopy of mitochondria-targeted green fluorescent protein,
transmission electron microscopy, and Western blot analysis of mitochondrial
proteins. The effect of N-acetyl-l-cysteine was specific
to mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy). Indeed, autophagy-dependent activation
of alkaline phosphatase and the presence of hallmarks of non-selective
microautophagy were not altered by N-acetyl-l-cysteine.
The effect of N-acetyl-l-cysteine was not related to its
scavenging properties, but rather to its fueling effect of the glutathione
pool. As a matter of fact, the decrease of the glutathione pool induced by
chemical or genetical manipulation did stimulate mitophagy but not general
autophagy. Conversely, the addition of a cell-permeable form of glutathione
inhibited mitophagy. Inhibition of glutathione synthesis had no effect in the
strain Δuth1, which is deficient in selective mitochondrial
degradation. These data show that mitophagy can be regulated independently of
general autophagy, and that its implementation may depend on the cellular
redox status.Autophagy is a major pathway for the lysosomal/vacuolar delivery of
long-lived proteins and organelles, where they are degraded and recycled.
Autophagy plays a crucial role in differentiation and cellular response to
stress and is conserved in eukaryotic cells from yeast to mammals
(1,
2). The main form of autophagy,
macroautophagy, involves the non-selective sequestration of large portions of
the cytoplasm into double-membrane structures termed autophagosomes, and their
delivery to the vacuole/lysosome for degradation. Another process,
microautophagy, involves the direct sequestration of parts of the cytoplasm by
vacuole/lysosomes. The two processes coexist in yeast cells but their extent
may depend on different factors including metabolic state: for example, we
have observed that nitrogen-starved lactate-grown yeast cells develop
microautophagy, whereas nitrogen-starved glucose-grown cells preferentially
develop macroautophagy (3).Both macroautophagy and microautophagy are essentially non-selective, in
the way that autophagosomes and vacuole invaginations do not appear to
discriminate the sequestered material. However, selective forms of autophagy
have been observed (4) that
target namely peroxisomes (5,
6), chromatin
(7,
8), endoplasmic reticulum
(9), ribosomes
(10), and mitochondria
(3,
11–13).
Although non-selective autophagy plays an essential role in survival by
nitrogen starvation, by providing amino acids to the cell, selective autophagy
is more likely to have a function in the maintenance of cellular structures,
both under normal conditions as a “housecleaning” process, and
under stress conditions by eliminating altered organelles and macromolecular
structures
(14–16).
Selective autophagy targeting mitochondria, termed mitophagy, may be
particularly relevant to stress conditions. The mitochondrial respiratory
chain is both the main site and target of
ROS4 production
(17). Consequently, the
maintenance of a pool of healthy mitochondria is a crucial challenge for the
cells. The progressive accumulation of altered mitochondria
(18) caused by the loss of
efficiency of the maintenance process (degradation/biogenesis de
novo) is often considered as a major cause of cellular aging
(19–23).
In mammalian cells, autophagic removal of mitochondria has been shown to be
triggered following induction/blockade of apoptosis
(23), suggesting that
autophagy of mitochondria was required for cell survival following
mitochondria injury (14).
Consistent with this idea, a direct alteration of mitochondrial permeability
properties has been shown to induce mitochondrial autophagy
(13,
24,
25). Furthermore, inactivation
of catalase induced the autophagic elimination of altered mitochondria
(26). In the yeast
Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the alteration of
F0F1-ATPase biogenesis in a conditional mutant has been
shown to trigger autophagy
(27). Alterations of
mitochondrial ion homeostasis caused by the inactivation of the
K+/H+ exchanger was shown to cause both autophagy and
mitophagy (28). We have
reported that treatment of cells with rapamycin induced early ROS production
and mitochondrial lipid oxidation that could be inhibited by the hydrophobic
antioxidant resveratrol (29).
Furthermore, resveratrol treatment impaired autophagic degradation of both
cytosolic and mitochondrial proteins and delayed rapamycin-induced cell death,
suggesting that mitochondrial oxidation events may play a crucial role in the
regulation of autophagy. This existence of regulation of autophagy by ROS has
received molecular support in HeLa cells
(30): these authors showed
that starvation stimulated ROS production, namely H2O2,
which was essential for autophagy. Furthermore, they identified the cysteine
protease hsAtg4 as a direct target for oxidation by
H2O2. This provided a possible connection between the
mitochondrial status and regulation of autophagy.Investigations of mitochondrial autophagy in nitrogen-starved lactate-grown
yeast cells have established the existence of two distinct processes: the
first one occurring very early, is selective for mitochondria and is dependent
on the presence of the mitochondrial protein Uth1p; the second one occurring
later, is not selective for mitochondria, is not dependent on Uth1p, and is a
form of bulk microautophagy
(3). The absence of the
selective process in the Δuth1 mutant strongly delays and
decreases mitochondrial protein degradation
(3,
12). The putative protein
phosphatase Aup1p has been also shown to be essential in inducing mitophagy
(31). Additionally several Atg
proteins were shown to be involved in vacuolar sequestration of mitochondrial
GFP (3,
12,
32,
33). Recently, the protein
Atg11p, which had been already identified as an essential protein for
selective autophagy has also been reported as being essential for mitophagy
(33).The question remains as to identify of the signals that trigger selective
mitophagy. It is particularly intriguing that selective mitophagy is activated
very early after the shift to a nitrogen-deprived medium
(3). Furthermore, selective
mitophagy is very active on lactate-grown cells (with fully differentiated
mitochondria) but is nearly absent in glucose-grown cells
(3). In the present paper, we
investigated the relationships between the redox status of the cells and
selective mitophagy, namely by manipulating glutathione. Our results support
the view that redox imbalance is a trigger for the selective elimination of
mitochondria. |