Cytoprotection by a naturally occurring variant of ATP5G1 in Arctic ground squirrel neural progenitor cells

Abstract
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Abstract

Many organisms in nature have evolved mechanisms to tolerate severe hypoxia or ischemia, including the hibernation-capable Arctic ground squirrel (AGS). Although hypoxic or ischemia tolerance in AGS involves physiological adaptations, little is known about the critical cellular mechanisms underlying intrinsic AGS cell resilience to metabolic stress. Through cell survival-based cDNA expression screens in neural progenitor cells, we identify a genetic variant of AGS Atp5g1 that confers cell resilience to metabolic stress. Atp5g1 encodes a subunit of the mitochondrial ATP synthase. Ectopic expression in mouse cells and CRISPR/Cas9 base editing of endogenous AGS loci revealed causal roles of one AGS-specific amino acid substitution in mediating cytoprotection by AGS ATP5G1. AGS ATP5G1 promotes metabolic stress resilience by modulating mitochondrial morphological change and metabolic functions. Our results identify a naturally occurring variant of ATP5G1 from a mammalian hibernator that critically contributes to intrinsic cytoprotection against metabolic stress.

Data availability

Data has been made available on Dryad (doi:10.7272/Q6MW2FCP) and code as been made available on GitHub (https://github.com/evanmlee/MaLab_spec_subs).

The following data sets were generated

1. Neel Singhal
2. Dengke Ma
(2020) Data for
Dryad Digital Repository, doi:10.7272/Q6MW2FCP.

https://doi.org/10.7272/Q6MW2FCP

Article and author information

Author details

Neel S Singhal

Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1605-4444
Meirong Bai

Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5919-7464
Evan M Lee

Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Shuo Luo

Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Kayleigh R Cook

Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Dengke K Ma

Physiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States

For correspondence
Dengke.Ma@ucsf.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-5619-7485

Funding

National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R01)

Dengke K Ma

Pew Charitable Trusts (Pew Scholar Award)

Dengke K Ma

David and Lucile Packard Foundation (Fellowship)

Dengke K Ma

Innovative Genomics Institute (Curci Scholar Award)

Dengke K Ma

American Heart Association (Fellowship Grant)

Neel S Singhal

American Heart Association (Fellowship Grant)

Meirong Bai

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.