예쁜꼬마선충을 이용한 자가소화작용 유전자에 관한 연구

Abstract

Autophagy is a cellular pathway involving the delivery of cytoplasmic material to the lysosome for degradation. It has various biological functions about cell growth, developmental differentiation, and homeostasis. In addition, autophagy is regulated by various stimuli including nutritional status, hormonal factors, intracellular stress, temperature and so on. In C. elegans, there are several genes involved in autophagy, and each gene contribute to progress autophagy pathway. In our study, we focused on the novel gene F53A10.2. We found that this gene is the homolog of Rap1 GTPase activating protein (Rap1GAP) through alignment analysis. RAP1 GTPase activating protein (RAP1GAP) is the regulator of Ras-related protein 1(RAP1) GTPase, so its function is hydrolysing GTP bound to RAP-1 to GDP bound, and RAP1 GTPase cylce can regulate the RAP1 signaling involving cell proliferation, adhesion, migration, etc. Here, we analyzed RNAi knockdown of F53A10.2 gene and also F53A10.2(tm4572) mutant especially concentrating on autophagy . Thus, we showed that the loss of F53A10.2 could enhance autophagy, suggesting that RAP1 GTPase cycle is related to autophagy process. Currently, we investigate the possible role of the relationship between RAP1 GTPase cylcle and autophagy pathway of molecular level.