Reduction of Protein Translation and Activation of Autophagy Protect against PINK1 Pathogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster
Figure 7
Atg18 RNAi blocks the rescuing effect of Atg1 OE but not that of Parkin OE or Marf RNAi.
The rescuing effect of Atg1 OE on the abnormal wing posture (A) and muscle energy depletion (B) phenotypes could be blocked by the co-expression of Atg18 RNAi, suggesting that Atg1 functions through inducing autophagy to rescue PINK1 RNAi phenotype. In contrast, the rescue of PINK1 RNAi phenotypes by Parkin OE or Marf RNAi were largely unaffected by the disruption of Atg1 or Atg18 through RNAi. The tests were carried out in both PINK1B9 mutant and Mhc-Gal4>PINK1 RNAi/S6K-TE backgrounds. Data are presented as mean ± s.e.m. Statistical significance was determined by Student's t test (**P<0.001). (C) Atg1 or Atg18 RNAi did not abolish the rescuing effect of Parkin OE in DA neurons. mitoGFP was expressed in DA neurons using the TH-Gal4 driver to visualize mitochondrial morphology. Overexpression of Parkin efficiently rescued the mitochondrial aggregation phenotype in PINK1 mutant (top panel). Similar rescuing effect was observed when Atg1 RNAi or Atg18 RNAi was co-expressed with Parkin (middle and bottom panels). The scale bar represents 5 µm.