Resveratrol induces autophagy through death‐associated protein kinase 1 (DAPK1) in human dermal fibroblasts under normal culture conditions

Autophagy is an essential process degrading damaged components. Although resveratrol has various beneficial activities for health, little is known about the effects of resveratrol on autophagy in skin. We investigated whether resveratrol affects autophagy in human dermal fibroblasts grown in complete medium. We found that after the resveratrol treatment, LC3-II reached a maximum level at 8 h and then gradually decreased. By PCR array analysis, we identified death-associated protein kinase 1 (DAPK1) as a new target of resveratrol, and we confirmed that the expression level of DAPK1 was enhanced by resveratrol. We also demonstrated that DAPK1 knock-down by siRNA was sufficient to reduce resveratrol-induced autophagy but did not affect the phosphorylation level of AMP-activated kinase (AMPK), a well-known target of resveratrol. These data indicate that resveratrol-induced autophagy can be mediated by DAPK1, raising the possibility that some of the beneficial effects of resveratrol may be due to its regulation of DAPK1.