PUBLICATION

Assaying autophagic activity in transgenic GFP-Lc3 and GFP-Gabarap zebrafish embryos

Authors
He, C., Bartholomew, C.R., Zhou, W., and Klionsky, D.J.
ID
ZDB-PUB-090227-2
Date
2009
Source
Autophagy   5(4): 520-526 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Zhou, Weibin
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Animals
  • Animals, Genetically Modified
  • Autophagy*
  • Biological Assay/methods*
  • Carrier Proteins/chemistry
  • Carrier Proteins/metabolism*
  • Dipeptides/pharmacology
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian/cytology*
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian/drug effects
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian/metabolism
  • Embryonic Development/drug effects
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins/metabolism*
  • Lysosomes/drug effects
  • Lysosomes/metabolism
  • Microtubule-Associated Proteins/chemistry
  • Microtubule-Associated Proteins/metabolism*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Protein Isoforms/metabolism
  • Protein Processing, Post-Translational/drug effects
  • Sequence Alignment
  • Sirolimus/pharmacology
  • Up-Regulation/drug effects
  • Zebrafish/embryology*
  • Zebrafish/genetics
  • Zebrafish Proteins/chemistry
  • Zebrafish Proteins/metabolism*
PubMed
19221467 Full text @ Autophagy
Abstract
Autophagy mediates the bulk turnover of cytoplasmic constituents in lysosomes. During embryonic development in animals, a dramatic degradation of yolk proteins and synthesis of zygotic proteins takes place, leading to intracellular remodeling and cellular differentiation. Zebrafish represents a unique system to study autophagy due in part to its rapid embryonic development relative to other vertebrates. The technical advantages of this organism make it uniquely suited to various studies including high-throughput drug screens. To study autophagy in zebrafish, we identified two zebrafish Atg8 homologs, lc3 and gabarap, and generated two transgenic zebrafish lines expressing GFP-tagged versions of the corresponding proteins. Similar to yeast Atg8 and mammalian LC3, zebrafish Lc3 undergoes post-translational modification starting at the pharyngula stage during embryonic development. We observed a high level of autophagy activity in zebrafish embryos, which can be further upregulated by the TOR inhibitor rapamycin or the calpain inhibitor calpeptin. In addition, zebrafish Gabarap accumulates within lysosomes upon autophagy induction. Thus, we established a convenient zebrafish tool to assay autophagic activity during embryogenesis in vivo.
Genes / Markers
Figures
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Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping