The germline-enriched Ppp1r36 promotes autophagy.
Spermatogenesis is a highly regulated process during which haploid sperm cells are generated. Although autophagy is involved in the spermatogenesis process, the molecular pathways and regulations of autophagy in germ cell development remain elusive. Here, we showed that Ppp1r36, a regulatory subunit of protein phosphatase 1, is expressed during gonadal development, mainly in testes during spermatogenesis. Autophagy protein LC3 (microtubule associated protein 1 light chain 3), especially its active form LC3-II, had a similar expression pattern to Ppp1r36. Moreover, LC3-II level and puncta analysis showed that autophagy is up-regulated around 21 dpp (day postpartum) in postnatal testis, indicating a potential role of autophagy during the first wave of spermatogenesis. We demonstrated that Ppp1r36 promotes autophagosome formation upon starvation induction. Further autophagy flux analysis using a tandem fluorescent indicator, mCherry-GFP-LC3, confirmed that Ppp1r36 participated in autophagy. We further determined that Ppp1r36 is associated with Atg16L1 (autophagy related 16-like 1) in autophagy of starvation induction. Thus, our results uncover a potential role of the regulatory subunit Ppp1r36 of protein phosphatase 1 in enhancing autophagy during spermatogenesis.
Department of Cell Biology, Wuhan 430072, P. R. China.
Qinghua
Q
Zhang
Department of Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P. R. China.
Maomao
M
Gao
Department of Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P. R. China.
Ying
Y
Zhang
Department of Cell Biology, Wuhan 430072, P. R. China.
Ying
Y
Song
Department of Cell Biology, Wuhan 430072, P. R. China.
Hanhua
H
Cheng
Department of Genetics, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, P. R. China.
Rongjia
R
Zhou
D000818:Animals; D001343:Autophagy / Q000235:genetics; D002460:Cell Line; D015870:Gene Expression; D005854:Germ Cells / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D011485:Protein Binding; D054645:Protein Phosphatase 1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D021122:Protein Subunits / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D013091:Spermatogenesis / Q000235:genetics; D013737:Testis / Q000378:metabolism
D021122:Protein Subunits; D054645:Protein Phosphatase 1