Comparison of the Effects of Nonprotein and Protein Nitrogen on Apoptosis and Autophagy of Rumen Epithelial Cells in Goats

Zhiwei Kong; Chuanshe Zhou; Jinhe Kang; Zhiliang Tan

doi:10.3390/ani10112079

Comparison of the Effects of Nonprotein and Protein Nitrogen on Apoptosis and Autophagy of Rumen Epithelial Cells in Goats

Animals (Basel). 2020 Nov 9;10(11):2079. doi: 10.3390/ani10112079.

Authors

Zhiwei Kong^{1

2

3}, Chuanshe Zhou^{1

4}, Jinhe Kang^{1

4}, Zhiliang Tan^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory for Agro-Ecological Processes in Subtropical Region, National Engineering Laboratory for Pollution Control and Waste Utilization in Livestock and Poultry Production, Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Nutritional Physiology and Metabolic Process, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha 410125, China.
² Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province, College of Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China.
³ College of Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Han Shan Normal University, Chaozhou 521041, China.
⁴ Hunan Co-Innovation Center of Safety Animal Production, CICSAP, National Engineering Laboratory for Pollution Control and Waste Utilization in Livestock and Poultry Production, Changsha 410128, China.

Abstract

Protein nutrition is particularly important for the self-renewal processes of gastrointestinal epithelial cells. The self-renewal of cells is inseparable from the interaction between apoptosis and autophagy. However, there are few reports on the relationship between different nitrogen sources and apoptosis/autophagy. In this study, the relative protein expression of Bcl-2-associated X protein(Bax), caspase-3, and p62 was significantly higher (p < 0.05), while that of Bcl-xl, Bcl-2, Beclin1, and Microtuble-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3-II) was significantly lower (p < 0.05), in the NH₄Cl group in comparison with the NH₄Cl + 4-phenylbutyric acid (4PBA) group. In addition, the relative protein expression of Bax and caspase-3 was significantly higher (p < 0.05), while that of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl was decreased significantly (p < 0.05), in the NH₄Cl + 3-Methyladenine (3-MA) group and the methionine (Met) + 3-MA group in comparison with the NH₄Cl group. Furthermore, the relative protein expression of Beclin1 and LC3B-II was significantly lower (p < 0.05), while that of p62 was significantly higher (p < 0.05), in the NH₄Cl + Z-VAD-FMK group and the Met + Z-VAD-FMK group in comparison with the NH₄Cl group. In conclusion, our results suggested that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress played a critical role in the crosstalk between apoptosis and autophagy induced by NH₄Cl and Met. Autophagy had a more obvious ameliorative effect on ruminal epithelial cell apoptosis after treatment with nonprotein nitrogen than after treatment with protein nitrogen. These findings may reveal the molecular mechanism of apoptosis and autophagy induced by nonprotein nitrogen and protein nitrogen.

Keywords: ammonium chloride; apoptosis; autophagy; methionine.

Abstract

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