Abstract
Autophagy is a catabolic process in eukaryotic cells promoting bulk or selective degradation of cellular components within lysosomes. In recent decades, several model systems were utilized to dissect the molecular machinery of autophagy and to identify the impact of this cellular “self-eating” process on various physiological and pathological processes. Here we briefly discuss the advantages and limitations of using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, a popular model in cell and developmental biology, to apprehend the main pathway of autophagy in a complete animal.
Highlights
During macroautophagy, large portions of cytoplasm including whole organelles are captured by a membrane cistern into a double membrane autophagosome, which fuses with components of the endo-lysosomal system
It is important to mention that most reporters can be degraded by autophagy in lysosomes, and RFP and its derivatives are surprisingly stable and accumulate to high levels within autolysosomes. This artefact complicates the interpretation of the results, so we suggest the use of complementary analyses to categorize autophagic vesicles
The polyamine spermidine is a good example for an autophagy-inducing compound that has proved to be effective for lifespan extension in various models including flies, and protected from toxicity induced by expression of Parkinson disease mutant alpha-synuclein or the Parkinsonian toxin paraquat (Table 1) [73,74,75]
Summary
The main protein degradation pathways are proteasomal and lysosomal breakdown in eukaryotic cells. Factors involved in autophagosome formation were first isolated in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and are called Atg (Autophagy-related) proteins. There appear to be important differences in the mechanisms of autophagosome- are not homologous [11,12], and autophagosome degradation in animal cells yeast depends oncells. Homologous [11,12], and autophagosome degradation in animal cells depends autophagic on Rab2 [13,14]. Molecular motors including dynein and kinesins are involved in the transportofofDrosophila autophagic vesicles [15,16]
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