Abstract
Discovering new therapeutic interventions to treat lipid and lipoprotein disorders is of great interest and the discovery of autophagy as a regulator of lipid metabolism has opened up new avenues for targeting modulators of this pathway. Autophagy is a degradative process that targets cellular components to the lysosome and recent studies have indicated a role for autophagy in regulating hepatic lipid metabolism (known as lipophagy) as well as lipoprotein assembly. Autophagy directly targets apolipoprotein B-100 (apoB100), the structural protein component of very low-density lipoproteins (VLDLs), and further targets lipid droplets (LDs), the cellular storage for neutral lipids. Autophagy thus plays a complex and dual role in VLDL particle assembly by regulating apoB100 degradation as well as aiding the maturation of VLDL particles by hydrolyzing lipid from LDs. The purpose of this article is to review our current understanding of molecular and cellular mechanisms mediating authophagic control of hepatic lipid biogenesis and VLDL production as well as dysregulation in insulin resistance and dyslipidemia.
Highlights
Autophagic process and cell metabolismThree types of autophagy have been established which differ in the way cargo is targeted and carried to the lysosome
Autophagy is a term derived from the Greek words "auto" meaning "self" and "phagy" meaning "to eat" and describes a catabolic process that targets cellular components to the lysosome for degradation
Additional studies have shown that h-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) such as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) stimulate posttranslational degradation of apolipoprotein B-100 (apoB100) following ER exit, in a process called postER pre-secretory proteolytic (PERPP) pathway [39]
Summary
Three types of autophagy have been established which differ in the way cargo is targeted and carried to the lysosome. These include macroautophagy, chaperone mediated autophagy, and microautophagy. Autophagy initiates with the formation of a phagophore originating from ER or Golgi, which gradually surrounds cytoplasmic substrates and organelles in a double-membrane vesicle called the autophagosome. The recruitment of microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3; mammalian homolog of Atg8) into the growing phagophore by an Atg and Atg complex[5] plays an important role in selective uptake of materials by autophagy. Lipid droplets (LDs) were identifiable in double-membrane vesicles suggesting for the first time that autophagy may play a role in regulation of lipid mobilization and metabolism[6]
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