Roles of macroautophagy in drosophila development

一种称为自噬的生物过程最近引起了人们的极大关注，因为它与人类疾病有关，如神经退行性疾病，细菌和病毒感染以及癌症。自噬的字面意思是“自食”，描述了一个过程，在这个过程中，细胞，我们体内组织的组成部分，降解自己的一部分，以回收和再利用。这种降解和再循环过程通常作为一种适应性反应，使细胞能够在营养缺乏等压力条件下生存。同样，自噬可以保护细胞免受破坏剂的伤害，并以这种方式与各种人类疾病和疾病治疗有关。此外，有证据表明，自噬涉及许多发育过程，如细胞生长，组织重塑，细胞碎片的去除，细胞性状的获得和寿命。然而，自噬在这些发育过程中的作用仍然不明确。我们研究计划的主要目标是阐明自噬在整个生物体正常发育中的作用。为了实现这一目标，我们将利用一个简单的模式生物系统，果蝇，它与人类共享许多遗传和细胞成分，包括自噬所需的成分。我们将开发改进的工具来研究这个模型系统中的自噬，并在整个正常果蝇发育生命周期中表征自噬。我们的计划将包括研究果蝇干细胞的自噬功能，果蝇干细胞是能够自我更新和组织生成的特化细胞。 从这项研究中获得的见解可能会为哺乳动物干细胞（包括癌症干细胞）的自噬功能提供宝贵的见解。总的来说，我们对自噬功能的研究将有助于我们对其在正常发育中的作用的基础知识，这将增加我们对其在人类疾病中的作用和作为治疗靶点的潜力的理解。

A biological process called autophagy has recently garnered enormous attention due to its association with human diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders, bacterial and viral infections, and cancer. Autophagy literally means "self-eating" and describes a process where cells, components of tissues in our bodies, degrade parts of themselves for recycling and re-use. This degradation and recycling process typically serves as an adaptive response, enabling cells to survive conditions of stress such as nutrient deprivation. Similarly, autophagy can protect cells from damaging agents and in this way has been associated with various human diseases and disease treatments. In addition, there is evidence that autophagy is involved in numerous developmental processes such as cell growth, tissue remodeling, removal of cell fragments, acquisition of cellular traits, and longevity. However, the roles of autophagy in these developmental processes remain ill defined. The main objective of our research program is to elucidate the function of autophagy in normal development in the context of a whole organism. To achieve this goal, we will utilize a simple model organism system, the fruit fly, which shares many genetic and cellular components with humans including components required for autophagy. We will develop improved tools to study autophagy in this model system, and characterize autophagy throughout the normal fruit fly developmental lifecycle. Our program will include investigation of autophagy function in fruit fly stem cells which are specialized cells capable of self renewal and tissue generation. Insights gained from this study will likely provide invaluable insights into autophagy function in mammalian stem cells, including cancer stem cells. Overall, our investigations of autophagy function will contribute to our fundamental knowledge of its role in normal development and this will increase our understanding of its roles in human diseases and potential as a therapeutic target.