Abstract: | Mitochondrial dysregulation is strongly implicated in Parkinson disease.
Mutations in PTEN-induced kinase 1 (PINK1) are associated with familial
parkinsonism and neuropsychiatric disorders. Although overexpressed PINK1 is
neuroprotective, less is known about neuronal responses to loss of PINK1
function. We found that stable knockdown of PINK1 induced mitochondrial
fragmentation and autophagy in SH-SY5Y cells, which was reversed by the
reintroduction of an RNA interference (RNAi)-resistant plasmid for PINK1.
Moreover, stable or transient overexpression of wild-type PINK1 increased
mitochondrial interconnectivity and suppressed toxin-induced
autophagy/mitophagy. Mitochondrial oxidant production played an essential role
in triggering mitochondrial fragmentation and autophagy in PINK1 shRNA lines.
Autophagy/mitophagy served a protective role in limiting cell death, and
overexpressing Parkin further enhanced this protective mitophagic response.
The dominant negative Drp1 mutant inhibited both fission and mitophagy in
PINK1-deficient cells. Interestingly, RNAi knockdown of autophagy proteins
Atg7 and LC3/Atg8 also decreased mitochondrial fragmentation without affecting
oxidative stress, suggesting active involvement of autophagy in morphologic
remodeling of mitochondria for clearance. To summarize, loss of PINK1 function
elicits oxidative stress and mitochondrial turnover coordinated by the
autophagic and fission/fusion machineries. Furthermore, PINK1 and Parkin may
cooperate through different mechanisms to maintain mitochondrial
homeostasis.Parkinson disease is an age-related neurodegenerative disease that affects
~1% of the population worldwide. The causes of sporadic cases are unknown,
although mitochondrial or oxidative toxins such as
1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium, 6-hydroxydopamine
(6-OHDA),3 and
rotenone reproduce features of the disease in animal and cell culture models
(1). Abnormalities in
mitochondrial respiration and increased oxidative stress are observed in cells
and tissues from parkinsonian patients
(2,
3), which also exhibit
increased mitochondrial autophagy
(4). Furthermore, mutations in
parkinsonian genes affect oxidative stress response pathways and mitochondrial
homeostasis (5). Thus,
disruption of mitochondrial homeostasis represents a major factor implicated
in the pathogenesis of sporadic and inherited parkinsonian disorders (PD).The PARK6 locus involved in autosomal recessive and early-onset PD
encodes for PTEN-induced kinase 1 (PINK1)
(6,
7). PINK1 is a cytosolic and
mitochondrially localized 581-amino acid serine/threonine kinase that
possesses an N-terminal mitochondrial targeting sequence
(6,
8). The primary sequence also
includes a putative transmembrane domain important for orientation of the
PINK1 domain (8), a conserved
kinase domain homologous to calcium calmodulin kinases, and a C-terminal
domain that regulates autophosphorylation activity
(9,
10). Overexpression of
wild-type PINK1, but not its PD-associated mutants, protects against several
toxic insults in neuronal cells
(6,
11,
12). Mitochondrial targeting
is necessary for some (13) but
not all of the neuroprotective effects of PINK1
(14), implicating involvement
of cytoplasmic targets that modulate mitochondrial pathobiology
(8). PINK1 catalytic activity
is necessary for its neuroprotective role, because a kinase-deficient K219M
substitution in the ATP binding pocket of PINK1 abrogates its ability to
protect neurons (14). Although
PINK1 mutations do not seem to impair mitochondrial targeting, PD-associated
mutations differentially destabilize the protein, resulting in loss of
neuroprotective activities
(13,
15).Recent studies indicate that PINK1 and Parkin interact genetically
(3,
16-18)
to prevent oxidative stress
(19,
20) and regulate mitochondrial
morphology (21). Primary cells
derived from PINK1 mutant patients exhibit mitochondrial fragmentation with
disorganized cristae, recapitulated by RNA interference studies in HeLa cells
(3).Mitochondria are degraded by macroautophagy, a process involving
sequestration of cytoplasmic cargo into membranous autophagic vacuoles (AVs)
for delivery to lysosomes (22,
23). Interestingly,
mitochondrial fission accompanies autophagic neurodegeneration elicited by the
PD neurotoxin 6-OHDA (24,
25). Moreover, mitochondrial
fragmentation and increased autophagy are observed in neurodegenerative
diseases including Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases
(4,
26-28).
Although inclusion of mitochondria in autophagosomes was once believed to be a
random process, as observed during starvation, studies involving hypoxia,
mitochondrial damage, apoptotic stimuli, or limiting amounts of aerobic
substrates in facultative anaerobes support the concept of selective
mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy)
(29,
30). In particular,
mitochondrially localized kinases may play an important role in models
involving oxidative mitochondrial injury
(25,
31,
32).Autophagy is involved in the clearance of protein aggregates
(33-35)
and normal regulation of axonal-synaptic morphology
(36). Chronic disruption of
lysosomal function results in accumulation of subtly impaired mitochondria
with decreased calcium buffering capacity
(37), implicating an important
role for autophagy in mitochondrial homeostasis
(37,
38). Recently, Parkin, which
complements the effects of PINK1 deficiency on mitochondrial morphology
(3), was found to promote
autophagy of depolarized mitochondria
(39). Conversely, Beclin
1-independent autophagy/mitophagy contributes to cell death elicited by the PD
toxins 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium and 6-OHDA
(25,
28,
31,
32), causing neurite
retraction in cells expressing a PD-linked mutation in leucine-rich repeat
kinase 2 (40). Whereas
properly regulated autophagy plays a homeostatic and neuroprotective role,
excessive or incomplete autophagy creates a condition of “autophagic
stress” that can contribute to neurodegeneration
(28).As mitochondrial fragmentation
(3) and increased mitochondrial
autophagy (4) have been
described in human cells or tissues of PD patients, we investigated whether or
not the engineered loss of PINK1 function could recapitulate these
observations in human neuronal cells (SH-SY5Y). Stable knockdown of endogenous
PINK1 gave rise to mitochondrial fragmentation and increased autophagy and
mitophagy, whereas stable or transient overexpression of PINK1 had the
opposite effect. Autophagy/mitophagy was dependent upon increased
mitochondrial oxidant production and activation of fission. The data indicate
that PINK1 is important for the maintenance of mitochondrial networks,
suggesting that coordinated regulation of mitochondrial dynamics and autophagy
limits cell death associated with loss of PINK1 function. |