Table 1.
Drosophila autophagy-related genes and their functional analyses.
| Atg proteins in Drosophila | Function | Loss of function phenotype | Gain of function phenotype | References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atg1 | Serine/threonine kinase | Short lived, oxidative stress response defects, reduced dendritic growth, autophagy defect | Extended lifespan, improved intestinal barrier, reduced cell size, induced autophagy, induction of apoptosis, and organismal death upon strong overexpression | Scott et al., 2004, 2007; Wu et al., 2009; Pircs et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2013; Nagy et al., 2014b; Ulgherait et al., 2014; Pérez et al., 2015; Clark et al., 2018 |
| Atg2 | Lipid transporter for autophagosome biogenesis | Short lived, decreased cell death, reduced dendritic growth, autophagy defect | – | Scott et al., 2004; Pircs et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2013; Nagy et al., 2014a; Xu et al., 2015; Clark et al., 2018; Valverde et al., 2019 |
| Atg3 (aka. Aut1) | E2-like enzyme, Atg8 ligase activity | Short lived, autophagy defect | – | Juhász et al., 2003; Scott et al., 2007; Chang et al., 2013; Pérez et al., 2015; Varga et al., 2016 |
| Atg4a | Cysteine-type endopeptidase | Accumulation of p62 positive aggregates, autophagy defect | – | Pircs et al., 2012; Pérez et al., 2015 |
| Atg4b | Cysteine-type endopeptidase | – | – | – |
| Atg5 | Atg8 ligase activity | Memory defect, autophagy defect, ataxia, reduced dendritic growth, impaired immune function | – | Scott et al., 2004; Ren et al., 2009; Chang et al., 2013; Pérez et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2016; Clark et al., 2018; Bhukel et al., 2019 |
| Atg6 | Autophagosome assembly, late endosome-lysosome maturation | Autophagy defect, melanotic mass formation | – | Chang et al., 2013; Shravage et al., 2013; Lõrincz et al., 2014; Pérez et al., 2015 |
| Atg7 | E1-type ligase, Atg8 and Atg12 activator enzyme | Short lived, memory defect, impaired immune function, autophagy defect | Extended lifespan | Scott et al., 2004; Juhász et al., 2007a; Ren et al., 2009; Chen et al., 2012; Erdi et al., 2012; Pircs et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2013; Nagy et al., 2014a; Pérez et al., 2015; Varga et al., 2016 |
| Atg8a | Ubiquitin like protein, autophagosome assembly | Reduced dendritic growth, autophagy defect | Extended lifespan | Scott et al., 2007; Simonsen et al., 2008; Pircs et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2013; Nagy et al., 2014a; Ulgherait et al., 2014; Pérez et al., 2015; Clark et al., 2018 |
| Atg8b | Ubiquitin like protein | – | – | Simonsen et al., 2008; Pérez et al., 2015 |
| Atg9 | Organization of PAS, response to oxidative stress, JNK activation | Thicker and shorter midgut, memory defect, autophagy defect, short lived | Induced JNK activation | Pircs et al., 2012; Tang et al., 2013; Nagy et al., 2014a; Pérez et al., 2015; Wen et al., 2017; Bhukel et al., 2019 |
| Atg10 | E2-like enzyme, Atg12 transferase activity | – | – | – |
| Atg12 | Ubiquitin like protein, Atg8 ligase activity | Reduced immune function, autophagy defect | – | Scott et al., 2004; Ren et al., 2009; Chang et al., 2013; Pérez et al., 2015 |
| Atg13 | Atg1 regulator activity | Short lived, autophagy defect | – | Chang and Neufeld, 2009; Pircs et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2013; Nagy et al., 2014b; Katheder et al., 2017; Melani et al., 2017 |
| Atg14 | Autophagosome assembly | Autophagy defect, decreased stem cell number in the gut | – | Pircs et al., 2012; Lõrincz et al., 2014; Nagy et al., 2016; Katheder et al., 2017 |
| Atg16 | Atg8 ligase activity | Defective immune responses, inflammation, thicker and shorter midgut, short lived, autophagy defect | – | Pircs et al., 2012; Chang et al., 2013; Varga et al., 2016; Nagy et al., 2017 |
| Atg17 (aka. FIP200) | Atg1 regulator activity | Short lived, autophagy defect | Enhanced autophagy | Kim et al., 2013; Nagy et al., 2014b |