Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 6 pp 7872—7882
PI3K/AKT/MTOR and ERK1/2-MAPK signaling pathways are involved in autophagy stimulation induced by caloric restriction or caloric restriction mimetics in cortical neurons
- 1 CNC - Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
- 2 Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
- 3 CIBB - Center for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Received: June 9, 2020 Accepted: February 25, 2021 Published: March 14, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202805How to Cite
Copyright: © 2021 Ferreira-Marques et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Caloric restriction has been shown to robustly ameliorate age-related diseases and to prolong lifespan in several model organisms, and these beneficial effects are dependent on the stimulation of autophagy. Autophagy dysfunction contributes to the accumulation of altered macromolecules, and is a key mechanism of promoting aging and age-related disorders, as neurodegenerative ones. We have previously shown that caloric restriction (CR), and CR mimetics Neuropeptide Y (NPY) and ghrelin, stimulate autophagy in rat cortical neurons, however by unknown molecular mechanisms. Overall, we show that CR, NPY, and ghrelin stimulate autophagy through PI3K/AKT/MTOR inhibition and ERK1/2-MAPK activation. The knowledge of these kinases in autophagy regulation and the contribution to the understanding of molecular mechanism facilitates the discovery of more targeted therapeutic strategies to stimulate autophagy, which is relevant in the context of age-related disorders.