Characterization of autophagy-related gene homologues from a three host tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The life cycle of ticks is characterized by alternate off-host and on-host conditions. The life span is estimated at several years and most ixodid ticks spend more than 95% of their life off the host. They seem to have a unique strategy to endure the off-host state for a long period. By electron microscopy, isolation membrane-, autophagosome- and autolysosome-like structures were found in the midgut epithelial cells of unfed ticks. Therefore, we focused on autophagy which is well-conserved from yeast to higher eukaryotes and induced by starvation. We have identified homologues of autophagy-related (ATG) genes (ATG3, ATG4 and ATG8) from cDNA libraries of the 3-host tick Haemaphysalis longicornis. Each expression profile of H. longicornis ATG (HlATG) genes and HlAtg proteins at the stages of nymph and adult were examined by real-time PCR and immunoblotting. Moreover, autophagy is known to be induced by inactivation of target of rapamycin (TOR), a phosphatidylinositol kinase. To examine the effect of TOR function on the expression of HlAtg protein(s), rapamycin, a specific inhibitor of the signal transduction mediated by TOR, was injected to unfed adults. It was revealed that the expression of HlAtg protein(s) was enhanced in response to the rapamycin. This result indicates that tick have the nutrient-sensitive TOR signaling pathway which regulate autophagy.