Effects on diet-induced autophagy in metazoa

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions worldwide in industrialized developing countries. High fat diet can induce autophagy initiation but prevent autophagosome maturation, leading to overt obesity and cardiac hypertrophy (Zhang et al., 2013). This study aims to determine the effects of high fat and sugar diets on neurodegeneration and lipid composition in a genetic mutant model affecting autophagy in Drosophila. Subsequently, in order to determine the conservation of possible effects of high fat diet on autophagic pathways across species,Caenorhabditis elegans was examined for changes in autophagic markers under different dietary conditions. Our findings support the hypothesis that diets influence ceramide levels which in turn affect the autophagy pathway in Drosophila. bchs mutants had more neurodegeneration in parallel with a decrease in ceramide levels under different diet conditions, with high sugar diet having the most adverse effect on both the ceramide levels and neuronal survival. In addition, C. elegans fed with high fat diets showed a decrease in autophagy, suggesting that this decrease might be responsible for a predisposition to neurodegeneration, similar to the situation observed in Drosophila on high fat. This study provides observations that could inspire further studies of diet-induced effects on autophagy and its relationship to neurodegenerative disease.Bachelor of Science in Biological Science