Characterization of the processes of autophagy and mitophagy in the eye of vertebrates

An international team of researchers with the participation of the group led by Dr. Patricia Boya in the Center for Biological Research, has shown in a work recently published in the journal Autophagy the existence of high levels of autophagy in the mouse eye, both during embryonic development as well as in the adult.

The eye is the most important organ for the perception of light in most vertebrates. The processes of mitochondrial homeostasis are of special importance for the maintenance of visual health and, in this context, mitophagy -selective autophagy of the mitochondria- plays a central role and its dysregulation has been linked to ocular dysfunctions. In this work, the prevalence of mitophagy and its relationship with general autophagy has been studied using mouse models in stages of embryonic development of the eye, as well as in adults, establishing the levels of autophagy and basal mitophagy in different tissues, from the cornea to the retina.

It has been shown that ocular autophagy is widespread in all these tissues, although surprisingly, mitophagy does not always follow the same trend, as in the case of the lens and the ciliary body where there are low levels of mitophagy while autophagy is very high in those regions.

In the group of Dr. Patricia Boya, the researcher Beatriz Villarejo-Zori has been focused on the description of these phenomena in the retina, studying the processes of autophagy and mitophagy in all the cell types that compose it. From her experiments it can be deduced that mitophagy is of great importance, especially in the photoreceptor layer, both during the development of the retina and in adulthood.

The work highlights the importance that both general autophagy and selective autophagy have during the normal physiology of the vertebrate eye. The data obtained reinforce the hypothesis that alterations of these processes could be behind diseases associated with blindness, such as glaucoma, and macular degeneration associated with age.

Reference: A comparative map of macroautophagy and mitophagy in the vertebrate eye. Thomas G. McWilliams, Alan R. Prescott, Beatriz Villarejo-Zori, Graeme Ball, Patricia Boya and Ian G. Ganley. Autophagy (2019) https://doi.org/10.1080/15548627.2019.1580509