Figure 4.

STAMBP positively regulates autophagy via stabilizing ULK1. (A-B) Electron microscopy observation (a) of ultra-structure of the cells. HeLa cells transfected with scramble or STAMBP siRNA are treated with rapamycin (250 nM) for 18 h before analysis. Arrows indicate autophagosomes or autolysosomes. Scale bar, 2 μm. Quantification (b) of autophagosomes and autolysosomes per cell after rapamycin treatment. (c-d) Confocal microscopy (c) and quantitative data (d) of HeLa cells at basal level or incubated in EBSS medium for 1 h. Scale bar, 20 μm. (e) co-IP and immunoassay of extracts of PBMCs treated with EBSS for various times (above lane). (f) Immunoassay of extracts of wild-type (WT) and STAMBP knockout (KO) HEK293 T cells cultured in EBSS medium for the various times (above lane). Data are representative of three independent biological experiments. Data in (a-d) are expressed as means ± SEM of three independent biological experiments (20 cells per sample). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ns, not significant. (two-tailed Student’s t-test)