Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster E77
Höfundar / Authors: Fannar Óli Ólafsson, Margrét Helga Ögmundsdóttir, Sigríður Stefanía Hlynsdóttir
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: Háskóli Íslands
Kynnir / Presenter: Fannar Óli Ólafsson
Autophagy is a vital and highly conserved process in the cell where damaged or unnecessary proteins, organelles and other cellular components are degraded and recycled to maintain cellular homeostasis. This is especially important in times of stress such as starvation, hypoxia and infection, and defects in autophagy can induce various diseases like cancer and neurodegeneration. Autophagy-related gene 7 (ATG7) is an E1-like enzyme that is essential for this process where it facilitates the formation of autophagosomes by mediating the lipidation of the autophagy protein LC3. In the blood however, a shorter isoform of ATG7 lacking one exon is mainly expressed. Without this exon, the protein looses its canonical role where it fails to bind to LC3. Interestingly, expression of ATG7 mRNA increases in tumurous tissue compared to normal tissue where the increase is higher in the shorter isoform, termed ATG7(2). Blood sample mRNA expression analysis shows highest expression of total ATG7 in monocytes and neutrophils. Whether the shorter isoform exists at protein level remains to be clarified. Therefore, the aim of this project is to measure amounts and ratio of ATG7 isoforms and protein-protein interactions in primary neutrophils and monocytes with mass spectrometry. Functional analysis and possible non-autophagy roles of ATG7 will be analyzed with phenotypic assays which will focus on either migration or metabolism, based on mass spec results.