Journal
DEVELOPMENTAL CELL
Volume 12, Issue 5, Pages 807-816Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2007.02.002
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Intramural NIH HHS Funding Source: Medline
- Wellcome Trust Funding Source: Medline
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The role of mitochondria in Drosophila programmed cell death remains unclear, although certain gene products that regulate cell death seem to be evolutionarily conserved. We find that developmental programmed cell death stimuli in vivo and multiple apoptotic stimuli ex vivo induce dramatic mitochondrial fragmentation upstream of effector caspase activation, phosphatidylserine exposure, and nuclear condensation in Drosophila cells. Unlike genotoxic stress, a lipid cell death mediator induced an increase in mitochondrial contiguity prior to fragmentation of the mitochondria. Using genetic mutants and RNAi-mediated knockdown of drp-1, we find that Drp-1 not only regulates mitochondrial fission in normal cells, but mediates mitochondrial fragmentation during programmed cell death. Mitochondria in drp-1 mutants fail to fragment, resulting in hyperplasia of tissues in vivo and protection of cells from multiple apoptotic stimuli ex vivo. Thus, mitochondrial remodeling is capable of modifying the propensity of cells to undergo death in Drosophila.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available