Renal
ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a leading cause of
acute kidney injury (AKI) and may influence renal graft survival. In this study, we investigate the involvement of
SIRT3 and DRP1 in mitochondrial autophagy and AKI in a mouse model of IRI. Autophagy was detected in the absence of
SIRT3, and hypoxic reoxygenation (H/R) experiments using renal tubular epithelial cells NRK52E were performed in vitro to validate these results. We found that autophagosomes increased following IRI and that the expression of autophagy-related genes was up-regulated. The inhibition of autophagy with
3-methyladenine exacerbated IRI, whereas the DRP1 inhibitor
Mdivi-1 reversed this inhibition.
Mdivi-1 did not reverse the inhibition of autophagy in the absence of
SIRT3. During IRI,
Mdivi-1 reduced autophagy and DRP1 expression, whereas
SIRT3 overexpression attenuated this condition. Rescue experiment showed that autophagy was increased when both
SIRT3 or DRP1 were over- or under-expressed or just DRP1 was under-expressed but expression was reduced when just
SIRT3 was under-expressed. However, the expression of DRP1-related molecules was reduced when
SIRT3 was overexpressed and when DRP1 was under-expressed. Taken together, these findings indicate that
SIRT3 protects against kidney damage from IRI by modulating the DRP1 pathway to induce mitochondrial autophagy.