Tissue homeostasis is controlled by the availability of growth factors, which sustain exogenous nutrient uptake and prevent apoptosis. Although autophagy can provide an alternate intracellular nutrient source to support essential basal metabolism of apoptosis-resistant growth factor-withdrawn cells, antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins can suppress autophagy in some settings. Thus, the role of autophagy and interactions between autophagy and apoptosis in growth factor-withdrawn cells expressing Bcl-2 or Bcl-xL were unclear. Here we show autophagy was rapidly induced in hematopoietic cells upon growth factor withdrawal regardless of Bcl-2 or Bcl-xL expression and led to increased mitochondrial lipid oxidation. Deficiency in autophagy-essential gene expression, however, did not lead to metabolic catastrophe and rapid death of growth factor-deprived cells. Rather, inhibition of autophagy enhanced survival of cells with moderate Bcl-2 expression for greater than 1 wk, indicating that autophagy promoted cell death in this time frame. Cell death was not autophagic, but apoptotic, and relied on Chop-dependent induction of the proapoptotic Bcl-2 family protein Bim. Therefore, although ultimately important, autophagy-derived nutrients appear initially nonessential after growth factor withdrawal. Instead, autophagy promotes tissue homeostasis by sensitizing cells to apoptosis to ensure only the most apoptosis-resistant cells survive long-term using autophagy-derived nutrients when growth factor deprived.
INTRODUCTIONMetazoan cells require growth factor input to maintain metabolism and viability in both development and tissue homeostasis (Raff, 1992;Rathmell et al., 2000). The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-Akt mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway is an important signaling mechanism of many growth factors that maintains nutrient uptake and prevents apoptotic cell death (Vivanco and Sawyers, 2002;Wieman et al., 2007). When cells are deprived of appropriate growth factor stimulation, the loss of PI3K-AktmTOR signaling, glucose transporter localization on the cell surface, and glucose uptake leads to apoptosis or autophagy (Tsujimoto and Shimizu, 2005;Wieman et al., 2007). Unlike the cell death pathway of apoptosis, autophagy is a dualfunction mechanism of bulk cytoplasmic and organelle degradation in lysosomes that can promote cell survival if controlled or can lead to death if excessive. The regulation of autophagy and how it impacts apoptosis and cell fate upon growth factor withdrawal, however, remain uncertain.Autophagy may influence cell fate upon growth factor deprivation by multiple mechanisms. Regulated autophagy can promote cell survival by providing metabolic fuel for mitochondrial oxidation after lysosomal digestion of intracellular components (Eskelinen, 2005;Lum et al., 2005b). Indeed, cells incapable of apoptosis can survive for an extended time after growth factor withdrawal or nutrient deprivation by utilizing autophagy as a source of nutrients to support basal cell metabolism (Lum et al., 2005a;Dege...