Abstract 3993: The BH3-only Protein Bnip3 Mediates Mitochondrial Autophagy via Recruitment of the Ubiquitin Ligase Parkin

Bnip3 is a pro-apoptotic BH3-only protein which is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and cell death in the heart. Bnip3 has also been shown to induce autophagy in many cells. Here, we investigated whether Bnip3 induced autophagy in primary adult cardiac myocytes by utilizing adenoviral infections of cells coupled with fluorescence deconvolution microscopy. Imaging of myocytes infected with adenoviruses expressing GFP-LC3 and Bnip3 or beta-gal were used to monitor formation of autophagosomes in cells. Overexpression of Bnip3 induced rapid increase in autophagy in adult cardiac myocytes (94.0±4.1%; n=3; p