# Transporters, nutrient sensing and autophagy

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS MED SCH WORCESTER · 2022 · $343,375

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Autophagy is used by all cells to deliver cytoplasmic material to the lysosome for degradation.
Significantly, autophagy has been implicated in several human diseases, including inflammatory
disorders, cancer and neurodegeneration. Most of what we know about the regulation of
autophagy is based on pioneering studies in yeast that defined the core autophagy machinery,
but recent studies have revealed that autophagy has unique regulatory mechanisms in higher
animals. Our hypothesis is that the regulation of autophagy in multicellular animals involves
unknown mechanisms that integrate with known autophagy pathways. In support of our
hypothesis, we recently identified previously uncharacterized genes encoding members of the
solute transporter (SLC) family that are required for autophagy during salivary gland
developmentally programmed cell death, including CG11665/hermes and CG5805. Significantly,
hermes encodes a pyruvate transporter that is required for autophagy during salivary gland
degradation. hermes mutant salivary glands have elevated mTOR signaling, and decreased
mTOR function suppresses the hermes salivary gland phenotype. CG5805 encodes a putative
mitochondrial amino acid transporter that is also required for autophagy in salivary glands. Our
data suggests that the CG5805 and hermes salivary gland phenotypes are related, possibly
through nutrient sensing mechanisms. In addition, hermes mutants have phenotypes suggesting
the that these transporters may function in the regulation of autophagy in adult intestine stem
cells. Our goal is to characterize the role of these SLCs in autophagy, cell health and death
during development and adulthood. Here we propose to: (1) determine how Hermes regulates
autophagy during development, (2) investigate CG5805 and its relationship to hermes and
autophagy, and (3) characterize the role of transporters and autophagy in adult stem cell and
intestine health. The association of autophagy with age-associated disorders illustrates the
importance of investigating the relationship between autophagy, cell and animal health.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10417045
- **Project number:** 5R01AG064892-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS MED SCH WORCESTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Eric H Baehrecke
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $343,375
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10417045

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10417045, Transporters, nutrient sensing and autophagy (5R01AG064892-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10417045. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*