Autophagy and Caloric Restriction in Cardiac Function

Caloric restriction is a dietary process known to reduce heart disease. Previous research showed that caloric restriction may induce autophagy. Autophagy is defined as a cells ability to dispose or recycle defective or un-necessary components, such as long lived proteins. This process can be enhanced in response to cellular stress and starvation. Autophagy can also destroy some bacteria within a cell. Certain pathogens disable the cells ability to take normal action to purge, as a result stimulating autophagy. Studies show that the dysregulation of autophagy plays a large role in many human illnesses including cancer and neurodegeneration. There were two groups of mice involved in this research project, wild type mice, and knock out gene mice. The knock out gene mice had inhibited autophagy and resembled characteristics of a diabetic human. We not only wanted to see if autophagy can be induced in healthy mice but, we also wanted to test if caloric restriction can induce autophagy in mice that have inhibited autophagy. Mice were subjected to caloric restriction and heart samples were harvested to test regulation in autophagy. Western blot analyses were done on cardiac tissue samples to determine if autophagy was able to be induced. In conclusion data shows that in wild type mice autophagy was able to be induced through caloric restriction. However, in the knock out gene mice autophagy was unable to be induced through caloric restriction. The results suggest that alternative methods should be evaluated for inducing autophagy in people who suffer from diabetes.