Project description:Loss-of-function mutations in the parkin gene (PARK2) and PINK1 gene (PARK6) are associated with autosomal recessive parkinsonism. PINK1 deficiency was recently linked to mitochondrial pathology in human cells and Drosophila melanogaster, which can be rescued by parkin, suggesting that both genes play a role in maintaining mitochondrial integrity. Here we demonstrate that an acute down-regulation of parkin in human SH-SY5Y cells severely affects mitochondrial morphology and function, a phenotype comparable with that induced by PINK1 deficiency. Alterations in both mitochondrial morphology and ATP production caused by either parkin or PINK1 loss of function could be rescued by the mitochondrial fusion proteins Mfn2 and OPA1 or by a dominant negative mutant of the fission protein Drp1. Both parkin and PINK1 were able to suppress mitochondrial fragmentation induced by Drp1. Moreover, in Drp1-deficient cells the parkin/PINK1 knockdown phenotype did not occur, indicating that mitochondrial alterations observed in parkin- or PINK1-deficient cells are associated with an increase in mitochondrial fission. Notably, mitochondrial fragmentation is an early phenomenon upon PINK1/parkin silencing that also occurs in primary mouse neurons and Drosophila S2 cells. We propose that the discrepant findings in adult flies can be explained by the time of phenotype analysis and suggest that in mammals different strategies may have evolved to cope with dysfunctional mitochondria.
Project description:Ferulic acid protects against cardiac injury by scavenging free radicals. However, the role of mitophagy in ferulic acid-induced cardioprotection remains obscure. In the present study, H9c2 cells were exposed to hypoxia/reoxygenation and ferulic acid treatment during hypoxia. We illustrated the impact of ferulic acid on oxidative damage in H9c2 cells. Our results showed that ferulic acid significantly attenuated apoptosis induced by hypoxia/reoxygenation injury and reduced mitochondrial dysfunction, evidenced by a decline in the overproduction of reactive oxygen species and ATP depletion and recovery of the membrane potential. We also found that mitophagy, a selective form of autophagy, was excessively activated in H9c2 cells subjected to hypoxia/reoxygenation. Ferulic acid reduced the binding of mitochondria to lysosomes, down-regulated the PINK1/Parkin pathway, and was accompanied by increased p62 and decreased LC3-II/LC3-I levels. Ferulic acid also antagonistically reduced the activation of mitophagy by rapamycin. These findings suggest that ferulic acid may protect H9c2 cells against ischemia/reperfusion injury by suppressing PINK1/Parkin-dependent mitophagy. Accordingly, our findings may provide a potential target and powerful reference for ferulic acid in clinical prevention and treatment of hypoxia/reoxygenation injury.
Project description:Mitochondrial dysfunction has been linked to the pathogenesis of a large number of inherited diseases in humans, including Parkinson's disease, the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. The Parkinson's disease genes pink1 and parkin, which encode a mitochondrially targeted protein kinase, and an E3 ubiquitin ligase, respectively, participate in a key mitochondrial quality-control pathway that eliminates damaged mitochondria. In the current study, we established an in vivo PINK1/Parkin-induced photoreceptor neuron degeneration model in Drosophila with the aim of dissecting the PINK1/Parkin pathway in detail. Using LC-MS/MS analysis, we identified Serine 346 as the sole autophosphorylation site of Drosophila PINK1 and found that substitution of Serine 346 to Alanine completely abolished the PINK1 autophosphorylation. Disruption of either PINK1 or Parkin phosphorylation impaired the PINK1/Parkin pathway, and the degeneration phenotype of photoreceptor neurons was obviously alleviated. Phosphorylation of PINK1 is not only required for the PINK1-mediated mitochondrial recruitment of Parkin but also induces its kinase activity toward Parkin. In contrast, phosphorylation of Parkin by PINK1 is dispensable for its translocation but required for its activation. Moreover, substitution with autophosphorylation-deficient PINK1 failed to rescue pink1 null mutant phenotypes. Taken together, our findings suggest that autophosphorylation of PINK1 is essential for the mitochondrial translocation of Parkin and for subsequent phosphorylation and activation of Parkin.
Project description:Mitophagy, a mitochondria-specific form of autophagy, removes dysfunctional mitochondria and is hence an essential process contributing to mitochondrial quality control. PTEN-induced kinase 1 (PINK1) and the E3 ubiquitin ligase Parkin are critical molecules involved in stress-induced mitophagy, but the intracellular signaling mechanisms by which this pathway is regulated are unclear. We tested the hypothesis that signaling through RhoA, a small GTPase, induces mitophagy via modulation of the PINK1/Parkin pathway as a protective mechanism against ischemic stress. We demonstrate that expression of constitutively active RhoA as well as sphingosine-1-phosphate induced activation of endogenous RhoA in cardiomyocytes result in an accumulation of PINK1 at mitochondria. This is accompanied by translocation of Parkin to mitochondria and ubiquitination of mitochondrial proteins leading to recognition of mitochondria by autophagosomes and their lysosomal degradation. Expression of RhoA in cardiomyocytes confers protection against ischemia, and this cardioprotection is attenuated by siRNA-mediated PINK1 knockdown. In vivo myocardial infarction elicits increases in mitochondrial PINK1, Parkin, and ubiquitinated mitochondrial proteins. AAV9-mediated RhoA expression potentiates these responses and a concurrent decrease in infarct size is observed. Interestingly, induction of mitochondrial PINK1 accumulation in response to RhoA signaling is neither mediated through its transcriptional upregulation nor dependent on depolarization of the mitochondrial membrane, the canonical mechanism for PINK1 accumulation. Instead, our results reveal that RhoA signaling inhibits PINK1 cleavage, thereby stabilizing PINK1 protein at mitochondria. We further show that active RhoA localizes at mitochondria and interacts with PINK1, and that the mitochondrial localization of RhoA is regulated by its downstream effector protein kinase D. These findings demonstrate that RhoA activation engages a unique mechanism to regulate PINK1 accumulation, induce mitophagy and protect against ischemic stress, and implicates regulation of RhoA signaling as a potential strategy to enhance mitophagy and confer protection under stress conditions.
Project description:Mitochondria are highly dynamic organelles with strict quality control processes that maintain cellular homeostasis. Within axons, coordinated cycles of fission-fusion mediated by dynamin related GTPase protein (DRP1) and mitofusins (MFN), together with regulated motility of healthy mitochondria anterogradely and damaged/oxidized mitochondria retrogradely, control mitochondrial shape, distribution and size. Disruption of this tight regulation has been linked to aberrant oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction causing mitochondrial disease and neurodegeneration. Although pharmacological induction of Parkinson's disease (PD) in humans/animals with toxins or in mice overexpressing α-synuclein (α-syn) exhibited mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress, mice lacking α-syn showed resistance to mitochondrial toxins; yet, how α-syn influences mitochondrial dynamics and turnover is unclear. Here, we isolate the mechanistic role of α-syn in mitochondrial homeostasis in vivo in a humanized Drosophila model of Parkinson's disease (PD). We show that excess α-syn causes fragmented mitochondria, which persists with either truncation of the C-terminus (α-syn1-120) or deletion of the NAC region (α-synΔNAC). Using in vivo oxidation reporters Mito-roGFP2-ORP1/GRX1 and MitoTimer, we found that α-syn-mediated fragments were oxidized/damaged, but α-syn1-120-induced fragments were healthy, suggesting that the C-terminus is required for oxidation. α-syn-mediated oxidized fragments showed biased retrograde motility, but α-syn1-120-mediated healthy fragments did not, demonstrating that the C-terminus likely mediates the retrograde motility of oxidized mitochondria. Depletion/inhibition or excess DRP1-rescued α-syn-mediated fragmentation, oxidation, and the biased retrograde motility, indicating that DRP1-mediated fragmentation is likely upstream of oxidation and motility changes. Further, excess PINK/Parkin, two PD-associated proteins that function to coordinate mitochondrial turnover via induction of selective mitophagy, rescued α-syn-mediated membrane depolarization, oxidation and cell death in a C-terminus-dependent manner, suggesting a functional interaction between α-syn and PINK/Parkin. Taken together, our findings identify distinct roles for α-syn in mitochondrial homeostasis, highlighting a previously unknown pathogenic pathway for the initiation of PD.
Project description:Loss-of-function mutations in the PRKN, PINK1 and PARK7 genes (encoding parkin, PINK1 and DJ-1, respectively) cause autosomal recessive forms of Parkinson's disease. PINK1 and parkin jointly mediate selective autophagy of damaged mitochondria (mitophagy), but the mechanisms by which loss of DJ-1 induces Parkinson's disease are not well understood. Here, we investigated PINK1/parkin-mediated mitophagy in cultured human fibroblasts and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neurons with homozygous PARK7 mutations. We found that DJ-1 is essential for PINK1/parkin-mediated mitophagy. Loss of DJ-1 did not interfere with PINK1 or parkin activation after mitochondrial depolarization but blocked mitophagy further downstream by inhibiting recruitment of the selective autophagy receptor optineurin to depolarized mitochondria. By contrast, starvation-induced, non-selective autophagy was not affected by loss of DJ-1. In wild-type fibroblasts and induced pluripotent stem cell-derived dopaminergic neurons, endogenous DJ-1 translocated to depolarized mitochondria in close proximity to optineurin. DJ-1 translocation to depolarized mitochondria was dependent on PINK1 and parkin and did not require oxidation of cysteine residue 106 of DJ-1. Overexpression of DJ-1 did not rescue the mitophagy defect of PINK1- or parkin-deficient cells. These findings position DJ-1 downstream of PINK1 and parkin in the same pathway and suggest that disruption of PINK1/parkin/DJ-1-mediated mitophagy is a common pathogenic mechanism in autosomal recessive Parkinson's disease.
Project description:Dysfunction of PINK1, a mitochondrial Ser/Thr kinase, causes familial Parkinson's disease (PD). Recent studies have revealed that PINK1 is rapidly degraded in healthy mitochondria but accumulates on the membrane potential (??m)-deficient mitochondria, where it recruits another familial PD gene product, Parkin, to ubiquitylate the damaged mitochondria. Despite extensive study, the mechanism underlying the homeostatic control of PINK1 remains unknown. Here we report that PINK1 is autophosphorylated following a decrease in ??m and that most disease-relevant mutations hinder this event. Mass spectrometric and mutational analyses demonstrate that PINK1 autophosphorylation occurs at Ser228 and Ser402, residues that are structurally clustered together. Importantly, Ala mutation of these sites abolishes autophosphorylation of PINK1 and inhibits Parkin recruitment onto depolarized mitochondria, whereas Asp (phosphorylation-mimic) mutation promotes mitochondrial localization of Parkin even though autophosphorylation was still compromised. We propose that autophosphorylation of Ser228 and Ser402 in PINK1 is essential for efficient mitochondrial localization of Parkin.
Project description:BackgroundQiliqiangxin (QLQX) is a preparation refined from a traditional Chinese medicine compound. It plays an important role in protecting cardiac function after myocardial infarction (MI). However, the underline mechanism of QLQX action is not clear. The purpose of this study was to detect the effects of QLQX on mitophagy after MI.MethodsMale FVB/NJ mice aged 8-10 weeks were underwent left coronary artery ligation and were orally administered either QLQX (0.25 g/kg/d) or saline. Twenty-eight days after surgical operation, the cardiac function of mice was detected by echocardiography. Electron Microscopy was used to observe the microstructure of cardiomyocytes. Myocardial apoptosis was examined by TdT-mediated dUTP Nick-End Labeling (TUNEL) and western blot. H9c2 cells were cultured in a hypoxic incubator chamber (5% CO2, 1% O2, 94% N2) for 12 h and pretreated with or without QLQX (0.5 mg/mL). The cell apoptosis, reactive oxygen species (ROS), mitochondrial membrane potential and mitophagy were detected.ResultsWhen compared to sham group, the cardiac function of MI mice decreased significantly, and their cardiomyocyte apoptosis and mitochondrial damage were more serious. These MI-induced cardiac changes could be reversed by QLQX treatment. In vitro experiments also confirmed that QLQX could protect cardiomyocytes from hypoxia-induced apoptosis and mitochondrial damage. Further study indicated that QLQX could increase the expression of Pink1 and Parkin in cardiomyocytes.ConclusionQiliqiangxin could reduce cardiomyocytes apotosis and improved heart function in infarcted heart through Pink1-mediated mitochondrial autophagy.
Project description:The cycle of mitochondrial division and fusion disconnect and reconnect individual mitochondria in cells to remodel this energy-producing organelle. Although dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) plays a major role in mitochondrial division in cells, a reduced level of mitochondrial division still persists even in the absence of Drp1. It is unknown how much Drp1-mediated mitochondrial division accounts for the connectivity of mitochondria. The role of a Parkinson's disease-associated protein-parkin, which biochemically and genetically interacts with Drp1-in mitochondrial connectivity also remains poorly understood. Here, we quantified the number and connectivity of mitochondria using mitochondria-targeted photoactivatable GFP in cells. We show that the loss of Drp1 increases the connectivity of mitochondria by 15-fold in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). While a single loss of parkin does not affect the connectivity of mitochondria, the connectivity of mitochondria significantly decreased compared with a single loss of Drp1 when parkin was lost in the absence of Drp1. Furthermore, the loss of parkin decreased the frequency of depolarization of the mitochondrial inner membrane that is caused by increased mitochondrial connectivity in Drp1-knockout MEFs. Therefore, our data suggest that parkin negatively regulates Drp1-indendent mitochondrial division.
Project description:Two genes linked to early onset Parkinson's disease, PINK1 and Parkin, encode a protein kinase and a ubiquitin-ligase, respectively. Both enzymes have been suggested to support mitochondrial quality control. We have reported that Parkin is phosphorylated at Ser65 within the ubiquitin-like domain by PINK1 in mammalian cultured cells. However, it remains unclear whether Parkin phosphorylation is involved in mitochondrial maintenance and activity of dopaminergic neurons in vivo. Here, we examined the effects of Parkin phosphorylation in Drosophila, in which the phosphorylation residue is conserved at Ser94. Morphological changes of mitochondria caused by the ectopic expression of wild-type Parkin in muscle tissue and brain dopaminergic neurons disappeared in the absence of PINK1. In contrast, phosphomimetic Parkin accelerated mitochondrial fragmentation or aggregation and the degradation of mitochondrial proteins regardless of PINK1 activity, suggesting that the phosphorylation of Parkin boosts its ubiquitin-ligase activity. A non-phosphorylated form of Parkin fully rescued the muscular mitochondrial degeneration due to the loss of PINK1 activity, whereas the introduction of the non-phosphorylated Parkin mutant in Parkin-null flies led to the emergence of abnormally fused mitochondria in the muscle tissue. Manipulating the Parkin phosphorylation status affected spontaneous dopamine release in the nerve terminals of dopaminergic neurons, the survivability of dopaminergic neurons and flight activity. Our data reveal that Parkin phosphorylation regulates not only mitochondrial function but also the neuronal activity of dopaminergic neurons in vivo, suggesting that the appropriate regulation of Parkin phosphorylation is important for muscular and dopaminergic functions.