TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gomes, Ligia G.
A1  - Odedra, Devang
A1  - Đikić, Ivan
A1  - Pohl, Christian
T1  - Autophagy and modular restructuring of metabolism control germline tumor differentiation and proliferation in C. elegans
T2  - Autophagy
N2  - Autophagy can act either as a tumor suppressor or as a survival mechanism for established tumors. To understand how autophagy plays this dual role in cancer, in vivo models are required. By using a highly heterogeneous C. elegans germline tumor, we show that autophagy-related proteins are expressed in a specific subset of tumor cells, neurons. Inhibition of autophagy impairs neuronal differentiation and increases tumor cell number, resulting in a shorter life span of animals with tumors, while induction of autophagy extends their life span by impairing tumor proliferation. Fasting of animals with fully developed tumors leads to a doubling of their life span, which depends on modular changes in transcription including switches in transcription factor networks and mitochondrial metabolism. Hence, our results suggest that metabolic restructuring, cell-type specific regulation of autophagy and neuronal differentiation constitute central pathways preventing growth of heterogeneous tumors.
KW  - autophagy
KW  - C. elegans
KW  - differentiation
KW  - fasting
KW  - life span
KW  - metabolism
KW  - nuclear hormone receptor
KW  - ROS
KW  - stress response
KW  - teratoma
Y1  - 2016
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/42580
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-425803
SN  - 1554-8635
SN  - 1554-8627
VL  - 12
IS  - 3
SP  - 529
EP  - 546
PB  - Taylor & Francis
CY  - Abingdon, Oxon
ER  -