Age-related specificity of the autophagy marker expression in skin cells from patients with face lifting

Abstract

Autophagy is known to be activated during organ or tissue ischemia induced by blood deprivation during surgery to keep the cells viable. Aim. To evaluate the expression of autophagy proteins, Beclin–1, LC3-II, p62, and Atg5 in cells isolated from the skin and subcutaneous fat excised from the face lifting surgical material. Patients. Women aged 21-64 (n = 84) were recruited. Methods. Cells were obtained from face lifting surgical materials using the collagenase treatment. The autophagy protein expression was analyzed using the flow cytometry. Statistics was performed using ANOVA based on the age of patients. Results. Expression of the studied autophagy markers was found to decrease with age; significant differences (p < 0.05) were obtained for patients older than 50 compared with those under 30. Conclusions. We demonstrated that autophagy was activated in cells from skin and subcutaneous fat during the face lifting. The autophagy protein expression was significantly reduced at ages older than 50 compared to the age under 30. The autophagy coupling with both hypoxia and changes in the mitochondrial membrane potential
was also shown.