Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology (Sep 2020)

Loss of ULK1 Attenuates Cholesterogenic Gene Expression in Mammalian Hepatic Cells

  • Sangam Rajak,
  • Liliana F. Iannucci,
  • Liliana F. Iannucci,
  • Jin Zhou,
  • B. Anjum,
  • Nelson George,
  • Brijesh K. Singh,
  • Sujoy Ghosh,
  • Paul M. Yen,
  • Rohit A. Sinha

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2020.523550
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8

Abstract

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The hepatic mevalonate (MVA) pathway, responsible for cholesterol biosynthesis, is a therapeutically important metabolic pathway in clinical medicine. Using an unbiased transcriptomics approach, we uncover a novel role of Unc-51 like autophagy activating kinase 1 (ULK1) in regulating the expression of the hepatic de novo cholesterol biosynthesis/MVA pathway genes. Genetic silencing of ULK1 in non-starved mouse (AML-12) and human (HepG2) hepatic cells as well as in mouse liver followed by transcriptome and pathway analysis revealed that the loss of ULK1 expression led to significant down-regulation of genes involved in the MVA/cholesterol biosynthesis pathway. At a mechanistic level, loss of ULK1 led to decreased expression of SREBF2/SREBP2 (sterol regulatory element binding factor 2) via its effects on AKT-FOXO3a signaling and repression of SREBF2 target genes in the MVA pathway. Our findings, therefore, discover ULK1 as a novel regulator of cholesterol biosynthesis and a possible druggable target for controlling cholesterol-associated pathologies.

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