Depletion of autophagy-related genes ATG3 and ATG5 in Tenebrio molitor leads to decreased survivability against an intracellular pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes.
Macroautophagy (autophagy) is an evolutionarily conserved catabolic process involved in physiological and developmental processes including cell survival, death, and innate immunity. Homologues of most of 36 originally discovered autophagy-related (ATG) genes in yeast have been characterized in higher eukaryotes including insects. In this study, the homologues of ATG3 (TmATG3) and ATG5 (TmATG5) were isolated from the coleopteran beetle, Tenebrio molitor by expressed sequence tag and RNAseq approaches. The cDNA of TmATG3 and TmATG5 comprise open-reading frame sizes of 963 and 792 bp encoding polypeptides of 320 and 263 amino acid residues, respectively. TmATG3 and TmATG5 mRNA are expressed in all developmental stages, and mainly in fat body and hemocytes of larvae. TmATG3 and TmATG5 showed an overall sequence identity of 58-95% to other insect Atg proteins. There exist clear one-to-one orthologs of TmATG3 and TmATG5 in Tribolium and that they clustered together in the gene tree. Depletion of TmATG3 and TmATG5 by RNA interference led to a significant reduction in survival ability of T. molitor larvae against an intracellular pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes. Six days post-Listeria challenge, the survival rate in the dsEGFP-injected (where EGFP is enhanced green fluorescent protein) control larvae was significantly higher (55%) compared to 4 and 3% for TmATG3 and TmATG5 double-stranded RNA injected larvae, respectively. These data suggested that TmATG3 and TmATG5 may play putative role in mediating autophagy-based clearance of Listeria in T. molitor model.
Division of Plant Biotechnology, Institute of Environmentally-Friendly Agriculture (IEFA), College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
Hamisi
H
Tindwa
Yong Hun
YH
Jo
Bharat Bhusan
BB
Patnaik
Mi Young
MY
Noh
Dong Hyun
DH
Kim
Iksoo
I
Kim
Yeon Soo
YS
Han
Yong Seok
YS
Lee
Bok Luel
BL
Lee
Nam Jung
NJ
Kim
D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy / Q000235:genetics*; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007814:Larva / Q000276:immunology / Q000382:microbiology; D008089:Listeria monocytogenes / Q000276:immunology / Q000502:physiology; D034622:RNA Interference; D012330:RNA, Double-Stranded; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein; D013712:Tenebrio / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology* / Q000382:microbiology*
D018076:DNA, Complementary; D012330:RNA, Double-Stranded; D012333:RNA, Messenger
ATG3; ATG5; Listeria monocytogenes; RNA interference; Tenebrio molitor; autophagy; molecular cloning