The class III phosphoinositide 3-kinase VPS34 plays a key role in the regulation of vesicular trafficking and macroautophagy. So far, we know little about the molecular mechanism of VPS34 activation besides its interaction with regulatory proteins to form complexes. Here, we report that VPS34 is specifically acetylated by the acetyltransferase p300, and p300-mediated acetylation represses VPS34 activity. Acetylation at K771 directly diminishes the affinity of VPS34 for its substrate PI, while acetylation at K29 hinders the VPS34-Beclin 1 core complex formation. Inactivation of p300 induces VPS34 deacetylation, PI3P production, and autophagy, even in AMPK, TSC2, or ULK1 cells. In fasting mice, liver autophagy correlates well with p300 inactivation/VPS34 deacetylation, which facilitates the clearance of lipid droplets in hepatocytes. Thus, p300-dependent VPS34 acetylation/deacetylation is the physiological key to VPS34 activation, which controls the initiation of canonical autophagy and of non-canonical autophagy in which the upstream kinases of VPS34 can be bypassed.
Malignant gliomas are common primary tumors of the central nervous system. The prognosis of patients with malignant glioma is poor in spite of current intensive therapy and thus novel therapeutic modalities are necessary. Bufalin is the major component of Chan-Su (a traditional Chinese medicine) extracts from the venom of Bufo gargarizan. In this study, we evaluated the growth inhibitory effect of bufalin on glioma cells and explored the underlying molecular mechanisms. Our results showed that bufalin inhibited the growth of glioma cells significantly. Mechanistic studies demonstrated that bufalin induced apoptosis through mitochondrial apoptotic pathway. In addition, bufalin was also found to induce ER stress-mediated apoptosis, which was supported by the up- regulation of ER stress markers, CHOP and GRP78, and augmented phosphorylation of PERK and eIF2α as well as cleavage of caspase-4. Downregulation of CHOP using siCHOP RNA attenuated bufalin-induced apoptosis, further confirming the role of ER stress response in mediating bufalin-induced apoptosis. Evidence of bufalin-induced autophagy included formation of the acidic vesicular organelles, increase of autophagolysosomes and LC3-II accumulation. Further experiments showed that the mechanism of bufalin-induced autophagy associated with ATP deleption involved an increase in the active form of AMPK, decreased phosphorylation levels of mTOR and its downstream targets 4EBP1 and p70S6K1. Furthermore, TUDC and silencing of eIF2α or CHOP partially blocked bufalin-induced accumulation of LC3-II, which indicated that ER stress preceded bufalin-induced autophagy and PERK/eIF2α/CHOP signaling pathway played a major part in the process. Blockage of autophagy increased expression of ER stress associated proteins and the ratio of apoptosis, indicating that autophagy played a cytoprotective role in bufalin induced ER stress and cell death. In conclusion, bufalin inhibits glioma cell growth and induces interplay between apoptosis and autophagy through endoplasmic reticulum stress. It will provide molecular bases for developing bufalin into a drug candidate for the treatment of maglinant glioma.
Purpose To investigate the effects of frequency drift on chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging at 3T, and to propose a new sequence for correcting artifacts attributed to B0 drift in real time. Theory and Methods A frequency‐stabilized CEST (FS‐CEST) imaging sequence was proposed by adding a frequency stabilization module to the conventional non‐frequency‐stabilized CEST (NFS‐CEST) sequence, which consisted of a small tip angle radiofrequency excitation pulse and readout of three non‐phase‐encoded k‐space lines. Experiments were performed on an egg white phantom and 26 human subjects on a heavy‐duty clinical scanner, in order to compare the difference of FS‐CEST and NFS‐CEST sequences for generating the z‐spectrum, magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTRasym) spectrum, and amide proton transfer weighted (APTw) image. Results The B0 drift in CEST imaging, if not corrected, would cause APTw images and MTRasym spectra from both the phantom and volunteers to be either significantly higher or lower than the true values, depending on the status of the scanner. The FS‐CEST sequence generated substantially more stable MTRasym spectra and APTw images than the conventional NFS‐CEST sequence. Quantitatively, the compartmental‐average APTw signals (mean ± standard deviation) from frontal white matter regions of all 26 human subjects were –0.32% ± 2.32% for the NFS‐CEST sequence and –0.14% ± 0.37% for the FS‐CEST sequence. Conclusions The proposed FS‐CEST sequence provides an effective approach for B0 drift correction without additional scan time and should be adopted on heavy‐duty MRI scanners.
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