ZYMOPHAGY OCCURS IN A CELLULAR MODEL OF PANCREATITIS

DANIEL GRASSO; MARÍA INÉS VACCARO; TAMARA ORQUERA; FELIPE RENNA

CABA

Congreso; Reunión Conjunta de Sociedades de Biociencias; 2017

SAIC, SAIB, SAI, SAA, SAB, SAB, SAFE, SAFIS, SAH, SAP

Pancreatitis is the inflammation of the pancreas due to the intracellular activation of zymogen granules (ZG). VMP1 is an autophagicprotein capable of induce autophagy by its mere expression. Wehave described the zymophagy as a VMP1-mediated type of selectiveautophagy of activated ZG. The objective of this work wasto set up an in vitro model of zymophagy. We used the rat pancreasderived acinar cells line AR42J. These cells were treated withdexamethasone in order to fully differentiate in acinar cells and thepresence of ZG were confirmed by amylase immunofluorescence(IF). Caerulein (Cae), a CCK analog, in a final concentration of 1µM was used to induce the acinar cell damage. We observed a recruitmentof ZG to specific spots at 15 min of Cae treatment, whichare decorated by the autophagy marker LC3 and VMP1 immunofluorescence.This was coincident with a switch in the levels of proteinexpression of VMP1, trypsin and amylase by western blot at15 min. This last finding was accompanied by immunofluorescencecolocalization of VMP1, Amylase and Ubiquitin in autophagosomesthe cellular model preparations. In conclusion, we were able to reproduceand validate the occurrence of zymophagy process in acellular model of pancreatitis. Altogether, this model demonstratesthat zymophagy is a very early event in the course of pancreatitis.