Age-associated and tissue-specific decline in autophagic activity in the nematode C. elegans

Figures & data

Figure 1. Spatiotemporal analysis of autophagic activity in C. elegans. (A) Different LGG-1/Atg8 reporters were used in combination with bafilomycin A₁ (BafA) to quantify fluorescent puncta as a readout for autophagosomes (AP) and/or autolysosomes (AL) to assess autophagic activity in tissues of C. elegans (i.e., intestine, pharynx [the foregut], body-wall muscle, and neurons. (B) Assessment of autophagic activity in young (top) and old wild-type (bottom) animals shows an age-associated decline. This trend was seen in all tissues, albeit with different kinetics. (C) Assessment of autophagic activity in long-lived mutants (i.e., in DAF-2/insulin/IGF-1 receptor daf-2(e1370) and GLP-1/Notch receptor glp-1(e2144) mutants) indicate a general increase in autophagic activity in young (top) and old (bottom) animals, compared to wild-type, and showed age- and tissue-specific differences between the 2 long-lived mutants. Future experiments are needed to directly test autophagic activity in C. elegans. See text for details. PG, phagophore.