부산대학교 도서관

Number of recent findings have highlighted the important functionality of olfactory receptors (ORs) expressed in extra-nasal tissues. In this study, we investigated the biological function of OR2H2 expressed in human vaginal epithelial cell line, VK2/E6E7. Here, we demonstrate that aldehyde 13-13—a specific ligand of OR2H2—strongly induced CaMKK-ß-AMPK signaling which subsequently activated the downstream pathways of autophagy and suppressed cellular senescence. In immunoblot analyses, various autophagy markers including mTOR, S6K, S6 showed a marked reduction in its phosphorylation level. p16 and p21, senescence markers, also exhibited a reduction in protein expression level with aldehyde 13-13 treatment. Thus we identified aldehyde 13-13 as a potent activator of CaMKK-ß-AMPK signaling pathway in VK2/E6E7, which triggers autophagy induction and suppresses the progression of cellular senescence. In OR2H2 knockdown studies, we expect to observe results with negated effects of aldehyde 13-13. These knockdown experiments will be performed soon. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that an ectopic olfactory receptor, OR2H2, attenuates cellular senescence via regulating CaMKK-ß-AMPK-autophagy signaling axis in VK2/E6E7.