Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2019
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V68
Höfundar / Authors: Kristrun Yr Holm, Kevin Ostacolo, Julia Bjorg Kristbjornsdottir, Sigridur S. Hlynsdóttir, Linda Sooman, Margret Helga Ogmundsdottir
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Faculty of medicine, Biomedical center, University of Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Kristrún Ýr Holm
ATG7 is an essential autophagy gene that has a major role in the initial stages of autophagosome formation. Existing evidence demonstrate that there are two isoforms of ATG7, ATG7(1) and ATG7(2). The ATG7(1) isoform can promote autophagosome formation, however, the ATG7(2) isoform does not. Impaired autophagy mechanism can be tumorigenic, and the lab has previously identified a germline variant of the essential autophagy gene ATG7 associated with hepatic cancer. This variant results in a coding change, D522E, in the ATG7 protein. This residue is conserved among mammals however it resides in a mammalian specific region of the ATG7 protein. The aim of this project is to characterize the function of this mammalian specific region. In order to do so we have generated stable human hepatocellular carcinoma HuH7 cell lines, expressing wild type ATG7(1), wild type ATG7(2) or either of the isoforms in which we have deleted the mammalian specific region (delMSR). Our data on autophagy, proliferation and migration indicate that the deletion of the mammalian specific region results in a phenotypical difference when present in ATG7(2). As ATG7(2) is unable to carry out the characterized autophagy function of ATG7, this implies that the mammalian specific region could play a role in a non-autophagy function of ATG7.