Virginija Jovaisaite

The mitochondrial unfolded protein response, a conserved stress response pathway with implications in health and disease.

The ability to respond to various intracellular and/or extracellular stresses allows the organism to adapt to changing environmental conditions and drives evolution. It is now well accepted that a progressive decline of the efficiency of stress response pathways occurs with aging. In this context, a correct proteostasis is essential for the functionality of the cell, and its dysfunction has been associated with protein aggregation and age-related degenerative diseases. Complex response mechanisms have evolved to deal with unfolded protein stress in different subcellular compartments and their moderate activation translates into positive effects on health. In this review, we focus on the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt), a response to proteotoxic stress specifically in mitochondria, an organelle with a wide array of fundamental functions, most notably the harvesting of energy from food and the control of cell death. We compare UPRmt with the extensively characterized cytosolic heat shock response (HSR) and the unfolded protein response in endoplasmic reticulum (UPRER), and discuss the current knowledge about UPRmt signaling pathways as well as their potential involvement in physiology.

Tetracyclines Disturb Mitochondrial Function across Eukaryotic Models: A Call for Caution in Biomedical Research

In recent years, tetracyclines, such as doxycycline, have become broadly used to control gene expression by virtue of the Tet-on/Tet-off systems. However, the wide range of direct effects of tetracycline use has not been fully appreciated. We show here that these antibiotics induce a mitonuclear protein imbalance through their effects on mitochondrial translation, an effect that likely reflects the evolutionary relationship between mitochondria and proteobacteria. Even at low concentrations, tetracyclines induce mitochondrial proteotoxic stress, leading to changes in nuclear gene expression and altered mitochondrial dynamics and function in commonly used cell types, as well as worms, flies, mice, and plants. Given that tetracyclines are so widely applied in research, scientists should be aware of their potentially confounding effects on experimental results. Furthermore, these results caution against extensive use of tetracyclines in livestock due to potential downstream impacts on the environment and human health.

Multilayered genetic and omics dissection of mitochondrial activity in a mouse reference population

The manner by which genotype and environment affect complex phenotypes is one of the fundamental questions in biology. In this study, we quantified the transcriptome--a subset of the metabolome--and, using targeted proteomics, quantified a subset of the liver proteome from 40 strains of the BXD mouse genetic reference population on two diverse diets. We discovered dozens of transcript, protein, and metabolite QTLs, several of which linked to metabolic phenotypes. Most prominently, Dhtkd1 was identified as a primary regulator of 2-aminoadipate, explaining variance in fasted glucose and diabetes status in both mice and humans. These integrated molecular profiles also allowed further characterization of complex pathways, particularly the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPR(mt)). UPR(mt) shows strikingly variant responses at the transcript and protein level that are remarkably conserved among C. elegans, mice, and humans. Overall, these examples demonstrate the value of an integrated multilayered omics approach to characterize complex metabolic phenotypes.

The mitochondrial unfolded protein response—synchronizing genomes.

Maintenance of the mitochondrial proteome is performed primarily by chaperones, which fold and assemble proteins, and by proteases, which degrade excess damaged proteins. Upon various types of mitochondrial stress, triggered genetically or pharmacologically, dysfunction of the proteome is sensed and communicated to the nucleus, where an extensive transcriptional program, aimed to repair the damage, is activated. This feedback loop, termed the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPR(mt)), synchronizes the activity of the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes and as such ensures the quality of the mitochondrial proteome. Here we review the recent advances in the UPR(mt) field and discuss its induction, signaling, communication with the other mitochondrial and major cellular regulatory pathways, as well as its potential implications on health and lifespan.

Joint mouse-human phenome-wide association to test gene function and disease risk

Phenome-wide association is a novel reverse genetic strategy to analyze genome-to-phenome relations in human clinical cohorts. Here we test this approach using a large murine population segregating for ∼5 million sequence variants, and we compare our results to those extracted from a matched analysis of gene variants in a large human cohort. For the mouse cohort, we amassed a deep and broad open-access phenome consisting of ∼4,500 metabolic, physiological, pharmacological and behavioural traits, and more than 90 independent expression quantitative trait locus (QTL), transcriptome, proteome, metagenome and metabolome data sets—by far the largest coherent phenome for any experimental cohort (www.genenetwork.org). We tested downstream effects of subsets of variants and discovered several novel associations, including a missense mutation in fumarate hydratase that controls variation in the mitochondrial unfolded protein response in both mouse and Caenorhabditis elegans, and missense mutations in Col6a5 that underlies variation in bone mineral density in both mouse and human.

An automated microfluidic platform for C. elegans embryo arraying, phenotyping,and long-term live imaging

Studies of the real-time dynamics of embryonic development require a gentle embryo handling method, the possibility of long-term live imaging during the complete embryogenesis, as well as of parallelization providing a population’s statistics, while keeping single embryo resolution. We describe an automated approach that fully accomplishes these requirements for embryos of Caenorhabditis elegans, one of the most employed model organisms in biomedical research. We developed a microfluidic platform which makes use of pure passive hydrodynamics to run on-chip worm cultures, from which we obtain synchronized embryo populations, and to immobilize these embryos in incubator microarrays for long-term high-resolution optical imaging. We successfully employ our platform to investigate morphogenesis and mitochondrial biogenesis during the full embryonic development and elucidate the role of the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) within C. elegans embryogenesis. Our method can be generally used for protein expression and developmental studies at the embryonic level, but can also provide clues to understand the aging process and age-related diseases in particular.

The mitochondrial unfolded protein response in mammalian physiology

Mitochondria, the main site of cellular energy harvesting, are derived from proteobacteria that evolved within our cells in endosymbiosis. Mitochondria retained vestiges of their proteobacterial genome, the circular mitochondrial DNA, which encodes 13 subunits of the oxidative phosphorylation multiprotein complexes in the electron transport chain (ETC), while the remaining ~80 ETC components are encoded in the nuclear DNA (nDNA). A further ~1,400 proteins, which are essential for mitochondrial function are also encoded in nDNA. Thus, a majority of mitochondrial proteins are translated in the cytoplasm, then imported, processed, and assembled in the mitochondria. An intricate protein quality control (PQC) network, constituted of chaperones and proteases that refold or degrade defective proteins, maintains mitochondrial proteostasis and ensures the cell and organism health. The mitochondrial unfolded protein response is a relatively recently discovered PQC pathway, which senses the proteostatic disturbances specifically in the mitochondria and resolves the stress by retrograde signaling to the nucleus and consequent transcriptional activation of protective genes. This PQC system does not only transiently resolve the local stress but also can have long-lasting effects on whole body metabolism, fitness, and longevity. A delicate tuning of its activation levels might constitute a treatment of various diseases, such as metabolic diseases, cancer, and neurodegenerative disorders.

A method to identify and validate mitochondrial modulators using mammalian cells and the worm C. elegans

Mitochondria are semi-autonomous organelles regulated by a complex network of proteins that are vital for many cellular functions. Because mitochondrial modulators can impact many aspects of cellular homeostasis, their identification and validation has proven challenging. It requires the measurement of multiple parameters in parallel to understand the exact nature of the changes induced by such compounds. We developed a platform of assays scoring for mitochondrial function in two complementary models systems, mammalian cells and C. elegans. We first optimized cell culture conditions and established the mitochondrial signature of 1,200 FDA-approved drugs in liver cells. Using cell-based and C. elegans assays, we further defined the metabolic effects of two pharmacological classes that emerged from our hit list, i.e. imidazoles and statins. We found that these two drug classes affect respiration through different and cholesterol-independent mechanisms in both models. Our screening strategy enabled us to unequivocally identify compounds that have toxic or beneficial effects on mitochondrial activity. Furthermore, the cross-species approach provided novel mechanistic insight and allowed early validation of hits that act on mitochondrial function.