Inhibition of cellular autophagy in proximal tubular cells of the kidney in streptozotocin-diabetic and uninephrectomized rats.

To examine the significance of anti-catabolism in renal hypertrophy, cellular autophagy was investigated by electron microscopic morphometry in proximal tubular cells (PTCs) of the outer cortex of the rat kidney after the induction of diabetes mellitus by streptozotocin (STZ) and after unilateral nephrectomy. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into three groups and killed by retrograde perfusion fixation, 1, 2 and 3 days after the induction of diabetes (group D; n = 24), after unilateral nephrectomy (group N; n = 24) and after combined treatment (group DN; n = 24). Untreated, age-matched litter mates served as controls (group C; n = 24). By comparison with these controls, the left kidney to initial body weight ratio was increased by 8, 23, and 15% in group D animals, by 8, 23, and 24% in group N animals, and by 10, 21, and 25% in group DN animals at the first, second and third day, respectively. Quantitative evaluation of large test areas showed that the volume and numerical densities of autophagic vacuoles (AVs) in PTCs were significantly lower in these hypertrophed kidneys than in the controls. The average reduction in AV volume density was about 65% in group D animals, about 50% in group N animals and about 75% in group DN animals. These data show that autophagic degradation of cytoplasmic components in PTCs is inhibited in renal hypertrophy independently of the growth stimulus, i.e. uninephrectomy or diabetes. Since insulin per se inhibits cellular autophagy in PTCs, the expected effect of insulin dificiency seems to be counteracted by as yet undefined stimuli that may be related to metabolic work load.     

Transposition and insertion of intact, deleted and enlarged ampicillin transposon Tn3 from mini-R1 (Rsc) plasmids into transfer factors

Summary The miniR1-(Rsc)-plasmids which derive from the copy mutant R1drd-19B2 (pKN102) are nonconjugative extrachromosomal elements which can not be co-transferred by various transfer factors to recipient strains under standard mating conditions. The attempts to mobilize Rsc11 by F'lac lead to transconjugants carrying F'lac::Tn3 with Tn3 mainly inserted into the lac operon. In addition it can be shown that Rsc11 can become inserted as a complete unit into the transfer factor giving rise to rather unstable recombinant intermediates. Dissociation of these intermediates may lead to alterations of the original plasmids.The Tn3 part of Rsc13 can be enlarged or deleted by in vitro manipulations. In vitro insertion of EcoRI-fragments into an EcoRI⁺ site of Tn3 leads to new transposable units which can be transposed to the RTF part of R1. This new genetic entity can be stably integrated into the chromosome of E. coli by integrative suppression of a dnaA^ts-mutation.Deletions at one end or the central region of Tn3 abolish the capability of transposition. However, the Rsc-plasmids containing the deleted Tn3 can still be inserted into the transfer factor as complete units. The resulting recombinants are unstable leading after dissociation in some cases to new plasmids with altered properties.