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Growth differentiation factor 11 accelerates liver senescence through the inhibition of autophagy.

ABSTRACT: The "rejuvenating" effect of growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11) is called into question recently, and its role, as well as plausible signaling mechanisms in liver senescence, is unclear. To overexpress or knockdown GDF11, aged male mice are injected with a single dose of adeno-associated viruses-GDF11 or adenovirus-small hairpin RNA-GDF11, respectively. GDF11 overexpression significantly accelerates liver senescence in aged mice, whereas GDF11 knockdown has opposite effects. Concomitantly, autophagic flux is impaired in livers from GDF11 overexpression mice. Conversely, GDF11 knockdown increases autophagic flux. Moreover, rapamycin successfully restores the impaired autophagic flux and alleviates liver senescence in GDF11 overexpression mice, while the GDF11 knockdown-mediated benefits are abolished by the autophagy inhibitor bafilomycin A1. GDF11 leads to a drop in lysosomal biogenesis resulting in defective autophagic flux at autophagosome clearance step. Mechanistically, GDF11 significantly activates mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) and subsequently represses transcription factor EB (TFEB), a master regulator of lysosomal biogenesis and autophagy. Inhibition of mTORC1 or TFEB overexpression rescues the GDF11-impaired autophagic flux and cellular senescence. Hepatocyte-specific deletion of GDF11 does not alter serum GDF11 levels and liver senescence. Collectively, suppression of autophagic activity via mTORC1/TFEB signaling may be a critical molecular mechanism by which GDF11 exacerbates liver senescence. Rather than a "rejuvenating" agent, GDF11 may have a detrimental effect on liver senescence.

SUBMITTER: Sun J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8761011 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11), also known as bone morphogenetic protein 11 (BMP11) is a member of the Growth differentiation factors (GDFs), a subfamily of proteins belonging to the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) superfamily (Katoh and Katoh 2006). ). In the past 7-8 years, several high profile studies, showed that systemic restoration of GDF11 levels reverses age-related phenotypes and rejuvenated heart and skeletal muscle in aged mice (Loffredo, Steinhauser et al. 2013, Sinha, Jang et al. 2014), improves insulin sensitivity via restoring pancreatic β-cell function in diabetic mice (Li, Li et al. 2017), and increases proliferation of brain capillary endothelial cells thereby improving the vascular and neurogenic rejuvenation in the brain of aged mice (Katsimpardi, Litterman et al. 2014, Finkenzeller, Stark et al. 2015, Zhang, Guo et al. 2018). Nonetheless, the possible rejuvenation effect of GDF11 was questioned over past years by several other studies. These reports doubted the age-associated decrease of circulating GDF11 level and related phenotypes in the muscle, the heart and the brain (Egerman, Cadena et al. 2015, Rodgers and Eldridge 2015); moreover, restoration of GDF11 levels in old mice had no positive effect on heart structure or function (Smith, Zhang et al. 2015). Increase of GDF11 levels had deleterious effects on aging skeletal muscle regeneration (Egerman, Cadena et al. 2015), suggesting also that supraphysiological levels could lead to cachexia (Hammers, Merscham-Banda et al. 2017). In the field of liver diseases, GDF11 was shown to exhibit tumor suppressive properties in HCC cells (Zhang, Pan et al. 2018, Gerardo-Ramírez, Lazzarini-Lechuga et al. 2019) and to worsen hepatocellular injury and liver regeneration after liver ischemia reperfusion injury (Liu, Dong et al. 2018). From these controverted studies, it is clear that the systemic effects of GDF11 in health and disease are not yet clearly and fully delineated. The aim of the present study was to specifically characterize the role of GDF11 in lipid metabolism and in the progression of the NAFLD disease spectrum, which is currently unknown. We thus aimed at investigating the potential effect of GDF11 on lipid droplet formation in human hepatocytes. Our data strongly suggest that GDF11 supplementation exacerbates, both in presence or absence of FFA, lipid droplet accumulation in two hepatic cell models (HepG2 and Hep3B) by impinging on ALK5/SMAD2/3 dependent signaling pathway.

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Growth differentiation factor 11 accelerates liver senescence through the inhibition of autophagy.

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