Mutation in several lysosomal trafficking genes results in significant decreased adult lifespan and several mutants exhibit changes in ubiquitinated protein profiles as young adults.
Autophagy primarily functions as an adaptive response to starvation or cellular stress by recycling non-essential cellular components for nutrition or by clearing old or damaged cytoplasmic material and organelles [Scott et al. 2004; Komatsu et al. 2005].
Alfy (autophagy-linked FYVE protein) is the conserved human bchs homolog [Simonsen et al. 2004].
Bchs/Alfy serve as scaffolding proteins, mediating a diverse series of protein and lipid interactions promoting the recruitment, organization, and transport of vesicles. Bchs/Alfy family aids in the removal of cytoplasmic ubiquitinated protein aggregates by promoting their autophagic clearance [Bojorkoy et al. 2005].
A bchs P-element insertion allele, bcsh was used for aging and starvation studies [Finley et al., 2003; FlyBase 2007].
Individual autophagy mutations act as strong homozygous lethal alleles, resulting in death at the late pupal or young adult stage of life.
atg8a might be partially redundant with atg8b. Atg8, also called LC3 (light chain of the microtubule-associated protein complex, MAP), undergoues C-terminal cleavage and covalent linkage to the lipid phosphatidylethnoalamine (PE) upon intercation with autophagic membranes [Kouno et al. 2005].
orange, ruby, garnet and carmine are the four subunits of the AP-3 protein complex. deep orange (dor, Vps18p, E3-ligase), carnation (Vps33, sec1 protein) and hook (colied-coil protein) act on the late endosomal pathway.
Simonsen, A., H. C. Birkeland, D. J. Gillooly, N. Mizushima, A. Kuma et al., 2004 Alfy, a novel FYVE-domain-containing protein associated with protein granules and autophagic membranes. J. Cell Sci. 117: 4239–4251.
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