Ras is involved in the negative control of autophagy through the class I PI3-kinase.

Ras proteins exert a pivotal regulatory function in signal transduction involved in cell proliferation and their activation mutation leads to malignant cell transformation. However, the role of Ras proteins in autophagy, an intracellular protein degradation process in cell growth control is unknown. In the present study, we demonstrate that the degradation of long-lived proteins in NIH3T3 cells in response to nutrient starvation was significantly suppressed by oncogenic RasVal12 transformation in a rapamycin (mTOR inhibitor)-sensitive manner. Morphologic observations also show the decrease in the formation of autophagic vacuoles upon the Ras transformation. Furthermore, epidermal growth factor or serum downregulated the protein degradation induced by serum starvation and the dominant-negative RasAsn17 mutant counteracted this suppressive effect, indicating that Ras mediates the growth factor downregulation of autophagy. The suppression of protein degradation by the activated RasVal12 was mediated by the class I phosphatidyl inositol 3-kinase (PI3-kinase), but not either or Raf Ral GDS. Consistent with this, RasVal12 and class I PI3-kinase inhibited the rate of autophagic sequestration of LDH. These data suggest that Ras plays a critical role as a negative regulator for nutrient deprivation-induced autophagy through the class I PI3-kinase signaling pathway.