Prolonged disturbance of proteostasis induces cellular senescence via temporal mitochondrial dysfunction and enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis in human fibroblasts

Proteolytic activities decline with age, resulting in the accumulation of aggregated proteins in aged organisms. To investigate how disturbance in proteostasis causes cellular senescence, we developed a stress-induced premature senescence (SIPS) model, in which normal human fibroblast MRC-5 cells were treated with either the proteasome inhibitor MG132 or the V-ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin A1 (BAFA1) for 5 days. Time-course studies revealed significant increase in intracellular and mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) during and after drug treatment. Mitochondrial membrane potential initially decreased, but recovered along with PGC-1-mediated mitochondrial biogenesis, especially after drug treatment. Mitochondrial antioxidant enzymes SOD2 and GPx4 were temporally depleted in mitochondria on day 1 of the treatment, which in turn could cause excess production of mitochondrial ROS. Extra-mitochondrial SOD2 colocalized with protein aggregates and lysosomes in MG132-treated cells on day 1. SOD2 partially interacted with HSC70 and LAMP2, implying that dysfunctional SOD2 was degraded through chaperon-mediated autophagy (CMA) and caused SOD2 depletion in mitochondria. SIPS induction by MG132 or BAFA1 was partially attenuated by co-treatment with rapamycin, in which generation of excess ROS and mitochondrial biogenesis were suppressed. Rapamycin co-treatment also augmented the upregulation of HSP70 and decreased protein aggregates after drug treatment. Our study proposes a possible pathway from the disturbance of proteostasis to cellular senescence via functional changes in mitochondria.