Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Aug 14.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2008 Oct 30;9(12):1004–1010. doi: 10.1038/nrm2527

Table 2.

Removal of ATG genes for cell death avoidance in vivo

Species Cell type and death
inducer		 Experimental removal of ATG
genes that affects cell death		 Refs
Caenorhabditis
elegans 		Neurons that degenerate
as a result of uncontrolled
ion fluxes through mutated
channel proteins (MEC-4 and
DEG-2)		 Mutation of atg-1 and RNAi of
bec-1 (the orthologue of ATG6
(yeast) and BECN1 (mammals)),
atg-8 (the orthologue of
mammalian LC3) and atg-18 		19
Drosophila melanogaster Transgenic expression of
AtG1 in larval salivary glands		 RNAi of atg12 20
Mus musculus Neonatal hippocampal
neurons dying after ligation
of the carotid artery and
transient hypoxia		 Neuron-specific knockout of
Atg7 (Atg7flox/flox and nestin–cre)
strongly reduces autophagy,
caspase-3 activation, pyknosis,
TUNEL-positivity and neuronal
loss		 21

ATG, autophagy-related; DEG-2, degenerin-2; MEC-4, mechanosensory protein-4; RNAi, RNA interference.