Autophagy promotes survival of adipose cells by inhibiting apoptosis un-der in vitro starvation / 中国病理生理杂志

ABSTRACT

AIM: To detect the changes of autophagy in adipose cells under starvation , and to clarify the effects of autophagy on the cell survival and apoptosis under starvation .METHODS: Rapamycin ( RAP) was applied to promote autophagy of adipose cells .These cells were then incubated under oxygen-glucose deprivation ( OGD) condition. After exposure of the cells to OGD , the changes of autophagy and apoptosis were determined by Western blotting , transmis-sion electron microscopy and TUNEL assay .RESULTS:Compared with the control cells , OGD-challenged cells had much higher level of autophagy .The apoptotic rate in OGD group was much higher than that in control group , which was reflected by increased protein level of activated caspase-3 and percentages of TUNEL positive cells .Preconditioning with RAP effec-tively improved OGD-induced autophagy , but did not affect the cell survival and apoptosis under normal condition , and ob-viously decreased the apoptotic rate of the cells under OGD condition .CONCLUSION:Autophagy protects adipose cells against starvation-induced apoptosis .Promotion of autophagy is helpful for attenuating starvation-induced apoptosis of the cells under OGD condition .