Éditeur(s) : Battelle Memorial Institute Battelle Memorial Institute
North America -- Panama -- Panama Canal Zone

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Landes Bioscience
Résumé : International audience
In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. A key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process vs. those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process); thus, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation needs to be differentiated from stimuli that result in increased autophagic activity, defined as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (in most higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.
Autophagy

hal-00735751
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00735751
PUBMED : 22966490

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : Folds with hinge lines subparallel to stretching lineation are common features in shear zones and represent extreme cases of fold modification. However, their microstructures and in particular their kinematic significance remain poorly understood. Here we describe the meso- and micro-scale structures and crystallographic preferred orientation (CPO) of quartz and muscovite from a metric-scale shear-modified fold from Plattjen, Saas Fee, Western Internal Alps. The studied fold is of class-2 and the samples collected around the fold have essentially the same microstructures. Quartz [c]-axes plotted in the tectonic coordinate system exhibit an apparent reverse obliquity on opposing limbs. Muscovite fabrics are controlled essentially by the orientation of {001} planes. If the CPO data are plotted in a common reference frame (e.g. either fold or geographical), all samples exhibit essentially the same patterns for both minerals. In particular, relative to the fold axis and axial surface, the reversal of quartz CPO obliquity on opposing limbs is no longer evident. The small obliquity (~ 15°) between the intersection lineation of the two planes of {001} of muscovite and the fold axis results in the apparent reversal of shear sense on opposite limbs when viewing the CPO related to the macroscopic fabric. The homogeneity of the microstructures and CPOs of quartz and muscovite across the fold support the interpretation that the fold developed during simultaneous activation of heterogeneous and homogeneous simple shear, with the former responsible for fold development and the latter responsible for fold rotation and the overwhelming of the heterogeneous deformation. These processes led to the observed parallelism between fold hinge line and local stretching lineation.
ISSN: 0040-1951

hal-00824537
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00824537
DOI : 10.1016/j.tecto.2011.03.003

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD BioMed Central
Résumé : International audience
Background : Trichoderma reesei is the main industrial source of cellulases and hemicellulases required for the hydrolysis of biomass to simple sugars, which can then be used in the production of biofuels and biorefineries. The highly productive strains in use today were generated by classical mutagenesis. As byproducts of this procedure, mutants were generated that turned out to be unable to produce cellulases. In order to identify the mutations responsible for this inability, we sequenced the genome of one of these strains, QM9136, and compared it to that of its progenitor T. reesei QM6a.Results : In QM9136, we detected a surprisingly low number of mutagenic events in the promoter and coding regions of genes, i.e. only eight indels and six single nucleotide variants. One of these indels led to a frame-shift in the Zn2Cys6 transcription factor XYR1, the general regulator of cellulase and xylanase expression, and resulted in its C-terminal truncation by 140 amino acids. Retransformation of strain QM9136 with the wild-type xyr1 allele fully recovered the ability to produce cellulases, and is thus the reason for the cellulase-negative phenotype. Introduction of an engineered xyr1 allele containing the truncating point mutation into the moderate producer T. reesei QM9414 rendered this strain also cellulase-negative. The correspondingly truncated XYR1 protein was still able to enter the nucleus, but failed to be expressed over the basal constitutive level.Conclusion : The missing 140 C-terminal amino acids of XYR1 are therefore responsible for its previously observed auto-regulation which is essential for cellulases to be expressed. Our data present a working example of the use of genome sequencing leading to a functional explanation of the QM9136 cellulase-negative phenotype.
ISSN: 1471-2164

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01149671
http://hal.upmc.fr/hal-01149671
http://hal.upmc.fr/hal-01149671/document
http://hal.upmc.fr/hal-01149671/file/Lichius_2015_Genome_sequencing.pdf
DOI : 10.1186/s12864-015-1526-0