Duox generated reactive oxygen species activate ATR/Chk1 to induce G2 arrest in Drosophila tracheoblasts
- Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine (inStem), India
- National Centre for Biological Sciences, India
Abstract
Progenitors of the thoracic tracheal system of adult Drosophila (tracheoblasts) arrest in G2 during larval life and rekindle a mitotic program subsequently. G2 arrest is dependent on ATR-dependent phosphorylation of Chk1 that is actuated in the absence of detectable DNA damage. We are interested in the mechanisms that activate ATR/Chk1 (Kizhedathu et al., 2018, 2020). Here we report that levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are high in arrested tracheoblasts and decrease upon mitotic re-entry. High ROS is dependent on expression of Duox, an H2O2 generating-Dual Oxidase. ROS quenching by overexpression of Superoxide Dismutase 1, or by knockdown of Duox, abolishes Chk1 phosphorylation and results in precocious proliferation. Tracheae deficient in Duox, or deficient in both Duox and regulators of DNA damage-dependent ATR/Chk1 activation (ATRIP/TOPBP1/ Claspin), can induce phosphorylation of Chk1 in response to micromolar concentrations of H2O2 in minutes. The findings presented reveal that H2O2 activates ATR/Chk1 in tracheoblasts by a non-canonical, potentially direct, mechanism.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting file; Source Data files have been provided for Figures 1,2,3,4
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India (inStem Core Funds)
- Arjun Guha
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2021, Kizhedathu et al.
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.
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Duox generated reactive oxygen species activate ATR/Chk1 to induce G2 arrest in Drosophila tracheoblasts
eLife 10:e68636.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.68636
Further reading
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- Developmental Biology
Imaginal progenitors in Drosophila are known to arrest in G2 during larval stages and proliferate thereafter. Here we investigate the mechanism and implications of G2 arrest in progenitors of the adult thoracic tracheal epithelium (tracheoblasts). We report that tracheoblasts pause in G2 for ~48–56 h and grow in size over this period. Surprisingly, tracheoblasts arrested in G2 express drivers of G2-M like Cdc25/String (Stg). We find that mechanisms that prevent G2-M are also in place in this interval. Tracheoblasts activate Checkpoint Kinase 1/Grapes (Chk1/Grp) in an ATR/mei-41-dependent manner. Loss of ATR/Chk1 led to precocious mitotic entry ~24–32 h earlier. These divisions were apparently normal as there was no evidence of increased DNA damage or cell death. However, induction of precocious mitoses impaired growth of tracheoblasts and the tracheae they comprise. We propose that ATR/Chk1 negatively regulate G2-M in developing tracheoblasts and that G2 arrest facilitates cellular and hypertrophic organ growth.
