Abstract
Mammals face environmental stressors throughout their lifespan, which may jeopardize cellular homeostasis. Hence, these organisms have acquired mechanisms to cope with stressors by sensing, repairing the damage, and reallocating resources to increase the odds of long-term survival. Autophagy is a pro-survival lysosome-mediated cytoplasm degradation pathway for organelle and macromolecule recycling. Furthermore, autophagy efflux increases, and this pathway becomes idiosyncratic depending upon developmental and environmental contexts. Mammalian germ cells and preimplantation embryos are attractive models for dissecting autophagy due to their metastable phenotypes during differentiation and exposure to varying environmental cues. The aim of this review is to explore autophagy during mammalian gametogenesis, fertilization and preimplantation embryonic development by contemplating its physiological role during development, under key stressors, and within the scope of assisted reproduction technologies.
Highlights
Mammalian development begins with a plethora of events: fertilization, pro-nuclei formation and syngamy, and the first mitotic division [1,2]
Free ULK1/2 complex alongside the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) complex form an isolation membrane known as phagophore. This occurs by sequestering part of a cellular membrane enclosing a fraction of the cytosol containing cargo such as organelles and/or macromolecules [29]
Knockdown of the autophagy-related protein 14 (ATG14) gene did not affect oocyte nuclear maturation reinforcing that autophagy is not required for this stage of mouse oogenesis [60]
Summary
Mammalian development begins with a plethora of events: fertilization, pro-nuclei formation and syngamy, and the first mitotic division [1,2]. Free ULK1/2 complex alongside the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) complex form an isolation membrane known as phagophore This occurs by sequestering part of a cellular membrane enclosing a fraction of the cytosol containing cargo such as organelles and/or macromolecules [29]. The phagophore elongates and becomes a double-membrane enclosed vesicle named autophagosome [26] This autophagosome fuses with a lysosome to become an autolysosome that allows complete degradation of cargo and release of cellular building blocks such as amino acids and lipids in the cytosol [27]. VPS34, beclin 1-associated autophagy-related key regulator/autophagy-related protein 14—ATG14, mammalian homolog of yeast Vps15—P150) This activation forms an isolation membrane (phagophore) by sequestering part of a cellular membrane enclosing a fraction of the cytosol.
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