PUBLICATION

An Autophagic Flux Probe that Releases an Internal Control

Authors
Kaizuka, T., Morishita, H., Hama, Y., Tsukamoto, S., Matsui, T., Toyota, Y., Kodama, A., Ishihara, T., Mizushima, T., Mizushima, N.
ID
ZDB-PUB-161108-6
Date
2016
Source
Molecular Cell   64(4): 835-849 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Mizushima, Noboru, Morishita, Hideaki
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Autophagy/drug effects*
  • Autophagy/genetics
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases/genetics
  • Cysteine Endopeptidases/metabolism
  • DNA-Binding Proteins/genetics
  • DNA-Binding Proteins/metabolism
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian
  • Gene Expression Regulation
  • Genes, Reporter
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins/genetics
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins/metabolism
  • HeLa Cells
  • High-Throughput Screening Assays*
  • Humans
  • Lysosomes/drug effects*
  • Lysosomes/metabolism
  • Mice
  • Microtubule-Associated Proteins/genetics
  • Microtubule-Associated Proteins/metabolism
  • Molecular Probes/genetics*
  • Molecular Probes/metabolism
  • Nuclear Proteins/genetics
  • Nuclear Proteins/metabolism
  • Phagosomes/drug effects*
  • Phagosomes/metabolism
  • Small Molecule Libraries/pharmacology*
  • Spectrometry, Fluorescence
  • Zebrafish
PubMed
27818143 Full text @ Mol. Cell
Abstract
Macroautophagy is an intracellular degradation system that utilizes the autophagosome to deliver cytoplasmic components to the lysosome. Measuring autophagic activity is critically important but remains complicated and challenging. Here, we have developed GFP-LC3-RFP-LC3ΔG, a fluorescent probe to evaluate autophagic flux. This probe is cleaved by endogenous ATG4 proteases into equimolar amounts of GFP-LC3 and RFP-LC3ΔG. GFP-LC3 is degraded by autophagy, while RFP-LC3ΔG remains in the cytosol, serving as an internal control. Thus, autophagic flux can be estimated by calculating the GFP/RFP signal ratio. Using this probe, we re-evaluated previously reported autophagy-modulating compounds, performed a high-throughput screen of an approved drug library, and identified autophagy modulators. Furthermore, we succeeded in measuring both induced and basal autophagic flux in embryos and tissues of zebrafish and mice. The GFP-LC3-RFP-LC3ΔG probe is a simple and quantitative method to evaluate autophagic flux in cultured cells and whole organisms.
Genes / Markers
Figures
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Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping