Mitochondrial Lon Protease at the Crossroads of Oxidative Stress, Ageing and Cancer

Overview

Journal Cell Mol Life Sci

Publisher Springer

Specialty Biology

Date 2015 Sep 14

PMID 26363553

Citations 40

Authors

Marcello Pinti

Lara Gibellini

Yongzhang Liu

Shan Xu

Bin Lu

Andrea Cossarizza

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Lon protease is a nuclear DNA-encoded mitochondrial enzyme highly conserved throughout evolution, involved in the degradation of damaged and oxidized proteins of the mitochondrial matrix, in the correct folding of proteins imported in mitochondria, and in the maintenance of mitochondrial DNA. Lon expression is induced by various stimuli, including hypoxia and reactive oxygen species, and provides protection against cell stress. Lon down-regulation is associated with ageing and with cell senescence, while up-regulation is observed in tumour cells, and is correlated with a more aggressive phenotype of cancer. Lon up-regulation contributes to metabolic reprogramming observed in cancer, favours the switch from a respiratory to a glycolytic metabolism, helping cancer cell survival in the tumour microenvironment, and contributes to epithelial to mesenchymal transition. Silencing of Lon, or pharmacological inhibition of its activity, causes cell death in various cancer cells. Thus, Lon can be included in the growing class of proteins that are not responsible for oncogenic transformation, but that are essential for survival and proliferation of cancer cells, and that can be considered as a new target for development of anticancer drugs.

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