Autophagy in kidney homeostasis and disease

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Abstract

Autophagy is a conserved lysosomal pathway for the degradation of cytoplasmic components. Basal autophagy in kidney cells is essential for the maintenance of kidney homeostasis, structure and function. Under stress conditions, autophagy is altered as part of the adaptive response of kidney cells, in a process that is tightly regulated by signalling pathways that can modulate the cellular autophagic flux — mammalian target of rapamycin, AMP-activated protein kinase and sirtuins are key regulators of autophagy. Dysregulated autophagy contributes to the pathogenesis of acute kidney injury, to incomplete kidney repair after acute kidney injury and to chronic kidney disease of varied aetiologies, including diabetic kidney disease, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis and polycystic kidney disease. Autophagy also has a role in kidney ageing. However, questions remain about whether autophagy has a protective or a pathological role in kidney fibrosis, and about the precise mechanisms and signalling pathways underlying the autophagy response in different types of kidney cells and across the spectrum of kidney diseases. Further research is needed to gain insights into the regulation of autophagy in the kidneys and to enable the discovery of pathway-specific and kidney-selective therapies for kidney diseases and anti-ageing strategies.

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Distinct regulation of autophagic activity by Atg14L and Rubicon associated with Beclin 1-phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase complex.

Yun Zhong, Qing Wang, Xianting Li … (2009)

Beclin 1, a mammalian autophagy protein that has been implicated in development, tumour suppression, neurodegeneration and cell death, exists in a complex with Vps34, the class III phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI(3)K) that mediates multiple vesicle-trafficking processes including endocytosis and autophagy. However, the precise role of the Beclin 1-Vps34 complex in autophagy regulation remains to be elucidated. Combining mouse genetics and biochemistry, we have identified a large in vivo Beclin 1 complex containing the known proteins Vps34, p150/Vps15 and UVRAG, as well as two newly identified proteins, Atg14L (yeast Atg14-like) and Rubicon (RUN domain and cysteine-rich domain containing, Beclin 1-interacting protein). Characterization of the new proteins revealed that Atg14L enhances Vps34 lipid kinase activity and upregulates autophagy, whereas Rubicon reduces Vps34 activity and downregulates autophagy. We show that Beclin 1 and Atg14L synergistically promote the formation of double-membraned organelles that are associated with Atg5 and Atg12, whereas forced expression of Rubicon results in aberrant late endosomal/lysosomal structures and impaired autophagosome maturation. We hypothesize that by forming distinct protein complexes, Beclin 1 and its binding proteins orchestrate the precise function of the class III PI(3)K in regulating autophagy at multiple steps.

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Cellular signalling by primary cilia in development, organ function and disease

Zeinab Anvarian, Kirk Mykytyn, Saikat Mukhopadhyay … (2019)

Primary cilia project in a single copy from the surface of most vertebrate cell types; they detect and transmit extracellular cues to regulate diverse cellular processes during development and to maintain tissue homeostasis. The sensory capacity of primary cilia relies on the coordinated trafficking and temporal localization of specific receptors and associated signal transduction modules in the cilium. The canonical hedgehog (HH) pathway, for example, is a bona fide ciliary signalling system that regulates cell fate and self-renewal in development and tissue homeostasis. Specific receptors and associated signal transduction proteins can also localize to primary cilia in a cell type-dependent manner; available evidence suggests that the ciliary constellation of these proteins can temporally change to allow the cell to adapt to specific developmental and homeostatic cues. Consistent with important roles for primary cilia in signalling, mutations that lead to their dysfunction underlie a pleiotropic group of diseases and syndromic disorders termed ciliopathies, which affect many different tissues and organs of the body. In this review we highlight central mechanisms by which primary cilia coordinate HH, G-protein-coupled receptor, WNT, receptor tyrosine kinase and TGFβ/BMP signalling, and illustrate how defects in the balanced output of ciliary signalling events are coupled to developmental disorders and disease progression.

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Novel targets for Huntington's disease in an mTOR-independent autophagy pathway.

Andrea Williams, Sovan Sarkar, Paul Cuddon … (2008)

Autophagy is a major clearance route for intracellular aggregate-prone proteins causing diseases such as Huntington's disease. Autophagy induction with the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin accelerates clearance of these toxic substrates. As rapamycin has nontrivial side effects, we screened FDA-approved drugs to identify new autophagy-inducing pathways. We found that L-type Ca2+ channel antagonists, the K+ATP channel opener minoxidil, and the G(i) signaling activator clonidine induce autophagy. These drugs revealed a cyclical mTOR-independent pathway regulating autophagy, in which cAMP regulates IP3 levels, influencing calpain activity, which completes the cycle by cleaving and activating G(s)alpha, which regulates cAMP levels. This pathway has numerous potential points where autophagy can be induced, and we provide proof of principle for therapeutic relevance in Huntington's disease using mammalian cell, fly and zebrafish models. Our data also suggest that insults that elevate intracytosolic Ca2+ (like excitotoxicity) inhibit autophagy, thus retarding clearance of aggregate-prone proteins.